Tuning and suppression in auditory nerve fibers of aged gerbils raised in quiet or noise.

Mongolian gerbils were reared either in quiet or in a continuous noise field (85 dBA, 500-4000 Hz). The gerbils began the noise exposure at 8 months of age and, after the exposure, spent the remainder of their lives in the quiet vivarium with the quiet-aged group. The duration of the noise exposure was between 365 and 724 days. At the terminal experiment the ages of the animals varied between 24 and 43 months, with a mean age of about 36 months, an age representing the average life span of a gerbil in our colony. During the terminal experiment, tuning curves and boundaries of two-tone rate suppression were obtained from single fibers in the auditory nerve. Threshold shifts occurred in both groups of animals. The shift was largely confined to the tip of the tuning curve; i.e., the region around the characteristic frequency (CF) of the fiber. The CF shifts effectively reduced the tip-to-tail ratios of the tuning curves. Two-tone suppression areas above and below CF were present for all fibers in the quiet-aged animals, but were often absent for fibers in the noise-aged group. The presence of suppression was largely independent of fiber thresholds in both groups of animals. Indeed, fibers were found with clearly-defined suppression boundaries above and below CF despite threshold shifts of up to 60 dB. Moreover, in the noise-aged group suppression below CF was sometimes found without concomitant suppression above CF and vice versa, suggesting an independence between the two suppression areas. For fibers with CFs within the bandwidth of the noise, two-tone suppression above CF was always absent, even though suppression below CF was sometimes present. In sum, two-tone suppression was near normal in ears aged in quiet despite relatively large threshold shifts at the fiber CF. However, suppression, especially that above CF, was vulnerable to the effects of chronic noise. Taken with the results of other studies, our data suggest that the micromechanics of the cochlea are largely responsible for two-tone suppression, especially that above CF, and that different mechanisms may underlie suppression above and below CF.