Manifestations of dynamic coding of the amplitude-modulated sounds on the level of auditory nerve fibres
Rimskaia-Korsakova, L.K.; Telepnev, V.N.; Dubrovskiĭ, N.A.
Rossiiskii Fiziologicheskii Zhurnal Imeni I.M. Sechenova 89(6): 700-714
2003
ISSN/ISBN: 0869-8139 PMID: 12966708 Document Number: 556578
Average firing rate of the auditory nerve fiber as function of the level of the tone with the frequency equal to characteristic frequency of the fibers, can be defined as an input-output characteristic. It is known that the steepening of the input-output characteristic of the real auditory nerve fiber is more, and the width is less than the spontaneous activity of the fiber. The latter characterizes fiber's ability to generate spikes, if the stimulus is absent. However it is known, that the real auditory nerve fibers with low spontaneous activity reproduce amplitude modulation of the signals much better, than the fibers with high spontaneous activity. From the results of simulation experiments, it follows that the dynamic properties of the auditory nerve fibers, providing fine tuning or adaptation of a fiber threshold under the stimulus level but not the static input-output characteristics, are the reason of fibers reproduction of stimuli amplitude modulations. However the auditory nerve fibers with high spontaneous activity due to abrupt input-output characteristic are capable to reproduce modulations of sounds whose levels are lower than a threshold of the fiber, if a weak signal adds to a weak broadband noise. This is a phenomenon of stochastic resonance found in the reactions of auditory nerve fibers.