Duration-sensitive neurons in the auditory cortex.

The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a difference in the neural encoding of tones and complex sounds. Obligatory cortical auditory evoked potentials were obtained from normal hearing adults using tones and complex sounds with two stimulus durations and two inter-stimulus intervals. The response was smaller in amplitude for all of the long duration stimuli when using a short inter-stimulus interval. The difference in amplitude between the short and long duration tones disappeared when using the longer inter-stimulus interval but persisted for the complex sounds. The results provide evidence for duration-sensitive neurons in the auditory cortex as well as evidence for differences in the neural encoding of tones and complex sounds.