Neuronal coding of communication sounds in the central nucleus of the mouse auditory midbrain (inferior colliculus): time-domain analyses

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Coding of streams of acoustic objects such as series of communication calls of animals or syllables and words in human speech is the “daily business” of mammalian auditory systems. Psychoacoustical and physiological experiments in humans have shown transitions in the perception of acoustic objects and auditory streams that occur with time constants near 20, 100, and 400 ms. These values in the time domain at which perceived sounds change their auditory quality have been found also in behavioral studies of house mice when they perceive and respond to their own communication calls. Thus, the mouse is an adequate animal model to test whether these time constants occur as general time windows of perceptual transition already at the subcortical level of sound processing, of which we know very little with regard to coding of auditory objects and streams. Hence, the present electrophysiological experiments were designed to analyze the main nucleus of the auditory midbrain (central nucleus of the inferior colliculus) with regard to coding the perceptually relevant time constants at the single neuron level and at the global level. Results are expected about the contribution of neuronal responses in the auditory midbrain to auditory object formation in the time domain and the coding of rhythms (streams of auditory objects). Such data are new and of general importance since they directly relate neuronal processing and coding in the midbrain to common properties of mammalian auditory perception.