Auditory nerve spatial encoding of high-frequency pure tones: population response profiles derived from d' measure associated with nearby places along the cochlea.

We examined a measure of discriminability in auditory nerve (AN) population responses that may underlie behavioral frequency discrimination of high-frequency pure tones in the cat. Population responses of high- (greater than = 15 spikes/s) and low- (less than 15 spikes/s) spontaneous rate (SR) AN fibers in unanesthetized decerebrate cats to 5 kHz pure tones were measured in the form of mean, mu, and standard deviation, sigma, of spike counts for 0.2 s tone bursts. The AN responses were analyzed in terms of a d'e(x, delta x) associated with adjoining cochlear places as defined in the manner of signal detection theory. We also examined sigma d'e(x, delta x), a spatial summation of the discriminability measure. The major findings are: (1) the d'e(x, delta x) function conveys information about 5 kHz pure tone frequency over a region of +/- 0.5 to 1.0 octave, or +/- 1.67 to 3.33 mm, around the characteristic place (CP), with the region being narrower at lower stimulus levels; (2) at 30 dB SPL, the integrated d'e(x, delta x) discriminability scores are similar for the apical and basal regions surrounding the CP whereas, at 70 dB SPL, the scores are higher for the apical region than for the basal region; and (3) at 50 and 70 dB SPL, the integrated d'e(x, delta x) discriminability scores of low-SR fibers were higher than those of high-SR fibers although, at 30 dB SPL, the latter were higher than the former. By using the cat cochlear frequency-place relationship and the inner hair cell (IHC) spacing, we interpret that the cat's frequency difference limen, delta f/f = 0.0088 at 4 kHz [Elliott et al., 1960, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 32, 380-384], corresponds to a shift of cochlear excitation profile by 4.5 IHCs. From the present analysis of AN responses, we conclude that, for high-frequency pure tones, the d'e(x, delta x) code, an example of rate-place code, of frequency provides sufficient information to support the cat's behavioral frequency discrimination.