Latency correction in sparse neuronal spike trains with overlapping global events.

Background: In Kreuz et al., J Neurosci Methods 381, 109703 (2022) two methods were proposed that perform latency correction, i.e.

Differences between children and adults in the neural encoding of voice fundamental frequency in the presence of noise and reverberation.

Environmental noise and reverberation challenge speech understanding more significantly in children than in adults. However, the neural/sensory basis for the difference is poorly understood. We evaluated the impact of noise and reverberation on the neural processing of the fundamental frequency of voice (f )-an important cue to tag or recognize a speaker.

Auditory Brainstem Models: Adapting Cochlear Nuclei Improve Spatial Encoding by the Medial Superior Olive in Reverberation.

Listeners typically perceive a sound as originating from the direction of its source, even as direct sound is followed milliseconds later by reflected sound from multiple different directions. Early-arriving sound is emphasised in the ascending auditory pathway, including the medial superior olive (MSO) where binaural neurons encode the interaural-time-difference (ITD) cue for spatial location. Perceptually, weighting of ITD conveyed during rising sound energy is stronger at 600 Hz than at 200 Hz, consistent with the minimum stimulus rate for binaural adaptation, and with the longer reverberation times at 600 Hz, compared with 200 Hz, in many natural outdoor environments.

High-Frequency Resonance in the Gerbil Medial Superior Olive.

A high-frequency, subthreshold resonance in the guinea pig medial superior olive (MSO) was recently linked to the efficient extraction of spatial cues from the fine structure of acoustic stimuli. We report here that MSO neurons in gerbil also have resonant properties and, based on our whole-cell recordings and computational modeling, that a low-voltage-gated potassium current, IKLT, underlies the resonance. We show that resonance was lost following dynamic clamp replacement of IKLT with a leak conductance and in the model when voltage-gating of IKLT was suppressed.

Subthreshold resonance properties contribute to the efficient coding of auditory spatial cues.

Neurons in the medial superior olive (MSO) and lateral superior olive (LSO) of the auditory brainstem code for sound-source location in the horizontal plane, extracting interaural time differences (ITDs) from the stimulus fine structure and interaural level differences (ILDs) from the stimulus envelope. Here, we demonstrate a postsynaptic gradient in temporal processing properties across the presumed tonotopic axis; neurons in the MSO and the low-frequency limb of the LSO exhibit fast intrinsic electrical resonances and low input impedances, consistent with their processing of ITDs in the temporal fine structure. Neurons in the high-frequency limb of the LSO show low-pass electrical properties, indicating they are better suited to extracting information from the slower, modulated envelopes of sounds.