Effect of the temporal pattern of contralateral inhibition on sound localization cues

Characterizing neural coding performance for populations of sensory neurons: comparing a weighted spike distance metrics to other analytical methods

The identity of sensory stimuli is encoded in the spatio-temporal patterns of responses of the encoding neural population. For stimuli to be discriminated reliably, differences in population responses must be accurately decoded by downstream networks. Several methods to compare patterns of responses have been used by neurophysiologists to characterize the accuracy of the sensory responses studied. Among the most widely used analyses, we note methods based on Euclidean distances or on spike metric distances. Methods based on artificial neural networks and machine learning that recognize and/or classify specific input patterns have also gained popularity. Here, we first compare these three strategies using datasets from three different model systems: the moth olfactory system, the electrosensory system of gymnotids, and leaky-integrate-and-fire (LIF) model responses. We show that the input-weighting procedure inherent to artificial neural networks allows the efficient extraction of information relevant to stimulus discrimination. To combine the convenience of methods such as spike metric distances but leverage the advantages of weighting the inputs, we propose a measure based on geometric distances where each dimension is weighted proportionally to how informative it is. We show that the result of this Weighted Euclidian Distance (WED) analysis performs as well or better than the artificial neural network we tested and outperforms the more traditional spike distance metrics. We applied information theoretic analysis to LIF responses and compared their encoding accuracy with the discrimination accuracy quantified through this WED analysis. We show a high degree of correlation between discrimination accuracy and information content, and that our weighting procedure allowed the efficient use of information present to perform the discrimination task. We argue that our proposed measure provides the flexibility and ease of use sought by neurophysiologists while providing a more powerful way to extract relevant information than more traditional methods.

Neuroethology of acoustic communication in field crickets - from signal generation to song recognition in an insect brain

Field crickets are best known for the loud calling songs produced by males to attract conspecific females. This review aims to summarize the current knowledge of the neurobiological basis underlying the acoustic communication for mate finding in field crickets with emphasis on the recent research progress to understand the neuronal networks for motor pattern generation and auditory pattern recognition of the calling song in Gryllus bimaculatus. Strong scientific interest into the neural mechanisms underlying intraspecific communication has driven persistently advancing research efforts to study the male singing behaviour and female phonotaxis for mate finding in these insects. The growing neurobiological understanding also inspired many studies testing verifiable hypotheses in sensory ecology, bioacoustics and on the genetics and evolution of behaviour. Over last decades, acoustic communication in field crickets served as a very successful neuroethological model system. It has contributed significantly to the scientific process of establishing, reconsidering and refining fundamental concepts in behavioural neurosciences such as command neurons, central motor pattern generation, corollary discharge processing and pattern recognition by sensory feature detection, which are basic building blocks of our modern understanding on how nervous systems control and generate behaviour in all animals.

Acoustic Pattern Recognition and Courtship Songs: Insights from Insects

Across the animal kingdom, social interactions rely on sound production and perception. From simple cricket chirps to more elaborate bird songs, animals go to great lengths to communicate information critical for reproduction and survival via acoustic signals. Insects produce a wide array of songs to attract a mate, and the intended receivers must differentiate these calls from competing sounds, analyze the quality of the sender from spectrotemporal signal properties, and then determine how to react. Insects use numerically simple nervous systems to analyze and respond to courtship songs, making them ideal model systems for uncovering the neural mechanisms underlying acoustic pattern recognition. We highlight here how the combination of behavioral studies and neural recordings in three groups of insects-crickets, grasshoppers, and fruit flies-reveals common strategies for extracting ethologically relevant information from acoustic patterns and how these findings might translate to other systems.

Sound localization behavior in Drosophila melanogaster depends on inter-antenna vibration amplitude comparisons

Drosophila melanogaster hear with their antennae: sound evokes vibration of the distal antennal segment, and this vibration is transduced by specialized mechanoreceptor cells. The left and right antennae vibrate preferentially in response to sounds arising from different azimuthal angles. Therefore, by comparing signals from the two antennae, it should be possible to obtain information about the azimuthal angle of a sound source. However, behavioral evidence of sound localization has not been reported in Drosophila Here, we show that walking D. melanogaster do indeed turn in response to lateralized sounds. We confirm that this behavior is evoked by vibrations of the distal antennal segment. The rule for turning is different for sounds arriving from different locations: flies turn toward sounds in their front hemifield, but they turn away from sounds in their rear hemifield, and they do not turn at all in response to sounds from 90 or -90 deg. All of these findings can be explained by a simple rule: the fly steers away from the antenna with the larger vibration amplitude. Finally, we show that these behaviors generalize to sound stimuli with diverse spectro-temporal features, and that these behaviors are found in both sexes. Our findings demonstrate the behavioral relevance of the antenna's directional tuning properties. They also pave the way for investigating the neural implementation of sound localization, as well as the potential roles of sound-guided steering in courtship and exploration.

Multisensory enhancement of burst activity in an insect auditory neuron

Detecting predators is crucial for survival. In insects, a few sensory interneurons receiving sensory input from a distinct receptive organ extract specific features informing the animal about approaching predators and mediate avoidance behaviors. Although integration of multiple sensory cues relevant to the predator enhances sensitivity and precision, it has not been established whether the sensory interneurons that act as predator detectors integrate multiple modalities of sensory inputs elicited by predators. Using intracellular recording techniques, we found that the cricket auditory neuron AN2, which is sensitive to the ultrasound-like echolocation calls of bats, responds to airflow stimuli transduced by the cercal organ, a mechanoreceptor in the abdomen. AN2 enhanced spike outputs in response to cross-modal stimuli combining sound with airflow, and the linearity of the summation of multisensory integration depended on the magnitude of the evoked response. The enhanced AN2 activity contained bursts, triggering avoidance behavior. Moreover, cross-modal stimuli elicited larger and longer lasting excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSP) than unimodal stimuli, which would result from a sublinear summation of EPSPs evoked respectively by sound or airflow. The persistence of EPSPs was correlated with the occurrence and structure of burst activity. Our findings indicate that AN2 integrates bimodal signals and that multisensory integration rather than unimodal stimulation alone more reliably generates bursting activity. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Crickets detect ultrasound with their tympanum and airflow with their cercal organ and process them as alert signals of predators. These sensory signals are integrated by auditory neuron AN2 in the early stages of sensory processing. Multisensory inputs from different sensory channels enhanced excitatory postsynaptic potentials to facilitate burst firing, which could trigger avoidance steering in flying crickets. Our results highlight the cellular basis of multisensory integration in AN2 and possible effects on escape behavior.

Firing-rate resonances in the peripheral auditory system of the cricket, Gryllus bimaculatus

In many communication systems, information is encoded in the temporal pattern of signals. For rhythmic signals that carry information in specific frequency bands, a neuronal system may profit from tuning its inherent filtering properties towards a peak sensitivity in the respective frequency range. The cricket Gryllus bimaculatus evaluates acoustic communication signals of both conspecifics and predators. The song signals of conspecifics exhibit a characteristic pulse pattern that contains only a narrow range of modulation frequencies. We examined individual neurons (AN1, AN2, ON1) in the peripheral auditory system of the cricket for tuning towards specific modulation frequencies by assessing their firing-rate resonance. Acoustic stimuli with a swept-frequency envelope allowed an efficient characterization of the cells' modulation transfer functions. Some of the examined cells exhibited tuned band-pass properties. Using simple computational models, we demonstrate how different, cell-intrinsic or network-based mechanisms such as subthreshold resonances, spike-triggered adaptation, as well as an interplay of excitation and inhibition can account for the experimentally observed firing-rate resonances. Therefore, basic neuronal mechanisms that share negative feedback as a common theme may contribute to selectivity in the peripheral auditory pathway of crickets that is designed towards mate recognition and predator avoidance.

Context-dependent coding and gain control in the auditory system of crickets

Sensory systems process stimuli that greatly vary in intensity and complexity. To maintain efficient information transmission, neural systems need to adjust their properties to these different sensory contexts, yielding adaptive or stimulus-dependent codes. Here, we demonstrated adaptive spectrotemporal tuning in a small neural network, i.e. the peripheral auditory system of the cricket. We found that tuning of cricket auditory neurons was sharper for complex multi-band than for simple single-band stimuli. Information theoretical considerations revealed that this sharpening improved information transmission by separating the neural representations of individual stimulus components. A network model inspired by the structure of the cricket auditory system suggested two putative mechanisms underlying this adaptive tuning: a saturating peripheral nonlinearity could change the spectral tuning, whereas broad feed-forward inhibition was able to reproduce the observed adaptive sharpening of temporal tuning. Our study revealed a surprisingly dynamic code usually found in more complex nervous systems and suggested that stimulus-dependent codes could be implemented using common neural computations.

Computational themes of peripheral processing in the auditory pathway of insects

Hearing in insects serves to gain information in the context of mate finding, predator avoidance or host localization. For these goals, the auditory pathways of insects represent the computational substrate for object recognition and localization. Before these higher level computations can be executed in more central parts of the nervous system, the signals need to be preprocessed in the auditory periphery. Here, we review peripheral preprocessing along four computational themes rather than discussing specific physiological mechanisms: (1) control of sensitivity by adaptation, (2) recoding of amplitude modulations of an acoustic signal into a labeled-line code (3) frequency processing and (4) conditioning for binaural processing. Along these lines, we review evidence for canonical computations carried out in the peripheral auditory pathway and show that despite the vast diversity of insect hearing, signal processing is governed by common computational motifs and principles.

Temporally-patterned deep brain stimulation in a mouse model of multiple traumatic brain injury

We report that mice with closed-head multiple traumatic brain injury (TBI) show a decrease in the motoric aspects of generalized arousal, as measured by automated, quantitative behavioral assays. Further, we found that temporally-patterned deep brain stimulation (DBS) can increase generalized arousal and spontaneous motor activity in this mouse model of TBI. This arousal increase is input-pattern-dependent, as changing the temporal pattern of DBS can modulate its effect on motor activity. Finally, an extensive examination of mouse behavioral capacities, looking for deficits in this model of TBI, suggest that the strongest effects of TBI in this model are found in the initiation of any kind of movement.

Selective phonotaxis to high sound-pulse rate in the cricket Gryllus assimilis

Calling song of the cricket Gryllus assimilis is unusual among Gryllus spp. in the high sound-pulse rate, ca. 80 Hz, within its chirps. We asked whether, as in other cricket species, females were able to analyze such a high pulse rate. In phonotaxis experiments, females failed to respond to stimuli with pulse rates substantially higher or lower than the species-typical value, demonstrating that they are indeed selective for this parameter. We also examined how pulse rate was represented by modulation in firing rate of the neuron AN1, the main carrier of information about cricket-song-like stimuli to the brain. For attractive stimuli, i.e. with high pulse rates, modulation of AN1 firing rate through time was surprisingly modest. This suggests that the brain circuits that analyze AN1 spike trains might be more sensitive to slight variations in AN1 firing rate than their counterparts in more slowly singing species.

Bursting neurons and ultrasound avoidance in crickets

Decision making in invertebrates often relies on simple neural circuits composed of only a few identified neurons. The relative simplicity of these circuits makes it possible to identify the key computation and neural properties underlying decisions. In this review, we summarize recent research on the neural basis of ultrasound avoidance in crickets, a response that allows escape from echolocating bats. The key neural property shaping behavioral output is high-frequency bursting of an identified interneuron, AN2, which carries information about ultrasound stimuli from receptor neurons to the brain. AN2's spike train consists of clusters of spikes - bursts - that may be interspersed with isolated, non-burst spikes. AN2 firing is necessary and sufficient to trigger avoidance steering but only high-rate firing, such as occurs in bursts, evokes this response. AN2 bursts are therefore at the core of the computation involved in deciding whether or not to steer away from ultrasound. Bursts in AN2 are triggered by synaptic input from nearly synchronous bursts in ultrasound receptors. Thus the population response at the very first stage of sensory processing - the auditory receptor - already differentiates the features of the stimulus that will trigger a behavioral response from those that will not. Adaptation, both intrinsic to AN2 and within ultrasound receptors, scales the burst-generating features according to the stimulus statistics, thus filtering out background noise and ensuring that bursts occur selectively in response to salient peaks in ultrasound intensity. Furthermore AN2's sensitivity to ultrasound varies adaptively with predation pressure, through both developmental and evolutionary mechanisms. We discuss how this key relationship between bursting and the triggering of avoidance behavior is also observed in other invertebrate systems such as the avoidance of looming visual stimuli in locusts or heat avoidance in beetles.

Cellular and circuit properties supporting different sensory coding strategies in electric fish and other systems

Neural codes often seem tailored to the type of information they must carry. Here we contrast the encoding strategies for two different communication signals in electric fish and describe the underlying cellular and network properties that implement them. We compare an aggressive signal that needs to be quickly detected, to a courtship signal whose quality needs to be evaluated. The aggressive signal is encoded by synchronized bursts and a predictive feedback input is crucial in separating background noise from the communication signal. The courtship signal is accurately encoded through a heterogenous population response allowing the discrimination of signal differences. Most importantly we show that the same strategies are used in other systems arguing that they evolved similar solutions because they faced similar tasks.

Multiple arithmetic operations in a single neuron: the recruitment of adaptation processes in the cricket auditory pathway depends on sensory context

Sensory pathways process behaviorally relevant signals in various contexts and therefore have to adapt to differing background conditions. Depending on changes in signal statistics, this adjustment might be a combination of two fundamental computational operations: subtractive adaptation shifting a neuron's threshold and divisive gain control scaling its sensitivity. The cricket auditory system has to deal with highly stereotyped conspecific songs at low carrier frequencies, and likely much more variable predator signals at high frequencies. We proposed that due to the differences between the two signal classes, the operation that is implemented by adaptation depends on the carrier frequency. We aimed to identify the biophysical basis underlying the basic computational operations of subtraction and division. We performed in vivo intracellular and extracellular recordings in a first-order auditory interneuron (AN2) that is active in both mate recognition and predator avoidance. We demonstrated subtractive shifts at the carrier frequency of conspecific songs and division at the predator-like carrier frequency. Combined application of current injection and acoustic stimuli for each cell allowed us to demonstrate the subtractive effect of cell-intrinsic adaptation currents. Pharmacological manipulation enabled us to demonstrate that presynaptic inhibition is most likely the source of divisive gain control. We showed that adjustment to the sensory context can depend on the class of signals that are relevant to the animal. We further revealed that presynaptic inhibition is a simple mechanism for divisive operations. Unlike other proposed mechanisms, it is widely available in the sensory periphery of both vertebrates and invertebrates.

Temporal encoding in a nervous system

We examined the extent to which temporal encoding may be implemented by single neurons in the cercal sensory system of the house cricket Acheta domesticus. We found that these neurons exhibit a greater-than-expected coding capacity, due in part to an increased precision in brief patterns of action potentials. We developed linear and non-linear models for decoding the activity of these neurons. We found that the stimuli associated with short-interval patterns of spikes (ISIs of 8 ms or less) could be predicted better by second-order models as compared to linear models. Finally, we characterized the difference between these linear and second-order models in a low-dimensional subspace, and showed that modification of the linear models along only a few dimensions improved their predictive power to parity with the second order models. Together these results show that single neurons are capable of using temporal patterns of spikes as fundamental symbols in their neural code, and that they communicate specific stimulus distributions to subsequent neural structures.

The information coding schemes used within nervous systems have been the focus of an entire field within neuroscience. An unresolved issue within the general coding problem is the determination of the neural “symbols” with which information is encoded in neural spike trains, analogous to the determination of the nucleotide sequences used to represent proteins in molecular biology. The goal of our study was to determine if pairs of consecutive action potentials contain more or different information about the stimuli that elicit them than would be predicted from an analysis of individual action potentials. We developed linear and non-linear coding models and used likelihood analysis to address this question for sensory interneurons in the cricket cercal sensory system. Our results show that these neurons' spike trains can be decomposed into sequences of two neural symbols: isolated single spikes and short-interval spike doublets. Given the ubiquitous nature of similar neural activity reported in other systems, we suspect that the implementation of such temporal encoding schemes may be widespread across animal phyla. Knowledge of the basic coding units used by single cells will help in building the large-scale neural network models necessary for understanding how nervous systems function.

Information transmission and detection thresholds in the vestibular nuclei: single neurons vs. population encoding

Understanding how sensory neurons transmit information about relevant stimuli remains a major goal in neuroscience. Of particular relevance are the roles of neural variability and spike timing in neural coding. Peripheral vestibular afferents display differential variability that is correlated with the importance of spike timing; regular afferents display little variability and use a timing code to transmit information about sensory input. Irregular afferents, conversely, display greater variability and instead use a rate code. We studied how central neurons within the vestibular nuclei integrate information from both afferent classes by recording from a group of neurons termed vestibular only (VO) that are known to make contributions to vestibulospinal reflexes and project to higher-order centers. We found that, although individual central neurons had sensitivities that were greater than or equal to those of individual afferents, they transmitted less information. In addition, their velocity detection thresholds were significantly greater than those of individual afferents. This is because VO neurons display greater variability, which is detrimental to information transmission and signal detection. Combining activities from multiple VO neurons increased information transmission. However, the information rates were still much lower than those of equivalent afferent populations. Furthermore, combining responses from multiple VO neurons led to lower velocity detection threshold values approaching those measured from behavior (∼ 2.5 vs. 0.5-1°/s). Our results suggest that the detailed time course of vestibular stimuli encoded by afferents is not transmitted by VO neurons. Instead, they suggest that higher vestibular pathways must integrate information from central vestibular neuron populations to give rise to behaviorally observed detection thresholds.

Temporal patterning of pulses during deep brain stimulation affects central nervous system arousal

Regulation of CNS arousal is important for a wide variety of functions, including the initiation of all motivated behaviors. Usually studied with pharmacological or hormonal tools, CNS arousal can also be elevated by deep brain stimulation (DBS), in the human brain and in animals. The effectiveness of DBS is conventionally held to depend on pulse width, frequency, amplitude and stimulation duration. We demonstrate a novel approach for testing the effectiveness of DBS to increase arousal in intact female mice: all of the foregoing parameters are held constant. Only the temporal patterning of the pulses within the stimulation is varied. To create differentially patterned pulse trains, a deterministic nonlinear dynamic equation was used to generate a series of pulses with a predetermined average frequency. Three temporal patterns of stimulation were defined: two nonlinear patterns, Nonlinear1 (NL1) and Nonlinear2 (NL2), and the conventional pattern, Fixed Frequency (FF). Female mice with bilateral monopolar electrodes were observed before, during and after hippocampal or medial thalamic stimulation. NL1 hippocampal stimulation was significantly more effective at increasing behavioral arousal than either FF or NL2; however, FF and NL2 stimulation of the medial thalamus were more effective than NL1. During the same experiments, we recorded an unpredicted increase in the spectral power of slow waves in the cortical EEG. Our data comprise the first demonstration that the temporal pattern of DBS can be used to elevate its effectiveness, and also point the way toward the use of nonlinear dynamics in the exploration of means to optimize DBS.

Calcium-dependent control of temporal processing in an auditory interneuron: a computational analysis

Sensitivity to acoustic amplitude modulation in crickets differs between species and depends on carrier frequency (e.g., calling song vs. bat-ultrasound bands). Using computational tools, we explore how Ca(2+)-dependent mechanisms underlying selective attention can contribute to such differences in amplitude modulation sensitivity. For omega neuron 1 (ON1), selective attention is mediated by Ca(2+)-dependent feedback: [Ca(2+)](internal) increases with excitation, activating a Ca(2+)-dependent after-hyperpolarizing current. We propose that Ca(2+) removal rate and the size of the after-hyperpolarizing current can determine ON1's temporal modulation transfer function (TMTF). This is tested using a conductance-based simulation calibrated to responses in vivo. The model shows that parameter values that simulate responses to single pulses are sufficient in simulating responses to modulated stimuli: no special modulation-sensitive mechanisms are necessary, as high and low-pass portions of the TMTF are due to Ca(2+)-dependent spike frequency adaptation and post-synaptic potential depression, respectively. Furthermore, variance in the two biophysical parameters is sufficient to produce TMTFs of varying bandwidth, shifting amplitude modulation sensitivity like that in different species and in response to different carrier frequencies. Thus, the hypothesis that the size of after-hyperpolarizing current and the rate of Ca(2+) removal can affect amplitude modulation sensitivity is computationally validated.

The structure and size of sensory bursts encode stimulus information but only size affects behavior

Cricket ultrasound avoidance is a classic model system for neuroethology. Avoidance steering is triggered by high-firing-rate bursts of spikes in the auditory command neuron AN2. Although bursting is common among sensory neurons, and although the detailed structure of bursts may encode information about the stimulus, it is as yet unclear whether this information is decoded. We address this question in two ways: from an information coding point of view, by showing the relationship between stimulus and burst structure; and also from a functional point of view by showing the relationship between burst structure and behavior. We conclude that the burst structure carries detailed temporal information about the stimulus but that this has little impact on the behavioral response, which is affected mainly by burst size.

Temporal Coding by Populations of Auditory Receptor Neurons

Auditory receptor neurons of crickets are most sensitive to either low or high sound frequencies. Earlier work showed that the temporal coding properties of first-order auditory interneurons are matched to the temporal characteristics of natural low- and high-frequency stimuli (cricket songs and bat echolocation calls, respectively). We studied the temporal coding properties of receptor neurons and used modeling to investigate how activity within populations of low- and high-frequency receptors might contribute to the coding properties of interneurons. We confirm earlier findings that individual low-frequency-tuned receptors code stimulus temporal pattern poorly, but show that coding performance of a receptor population increases markedly with population size, due in part to low redundancy among the spike trains of different receptors. By contrast, individual high-frequency-tuned receptors code a stimulus temporal pattern fairly well and, because their spike trains are redundant, there is only a slight increase in coding performance with population size. The coding properties of low- and high-frequency receptor populations resemble those of interneurons in response to low- and high-frequency stimuli, suggesting that coding at the interneuron level is partly determined by the nature and organization of afferent input. Consistent with this, the sound-frequency-specific coding properties of an interneuron, previously demonstrated by analyzing its spike train, are also apparent in the subthreshold fluctuations in membrane potential that are generated by synaptic input from receptor neurons.

Noise Shaping in Neural Populations with Global Delayed Feedback

The interplay between intrinsic and network dynamics has been the focus of many investigations. Here we use a combination of theoretical and numerical approaches to study the effects of delayed global feedback on the information transmission properties of neural networks. Specifically, we compare networks of neurons that display intrinsic interspike interval correlations (nonrenewal) to networks that do not (renewal). We find that excitatory and inhibitory delays can tune information transmission by single neurons but not by the entire network. Most surprisingly, addition of a delay can change the dependence of the information on the coupling strength for renewal neurons and not for nonrenewal neurons. Our results show that intrinsic ISI correlations can have nontrivial interactions with network-induced phenomena.

Noise shaping in neural populations

Many neurons display intrinsic interspike interval correlations in their spike trains. However, the effects of such correlations on information transmission in neural populations are not well understood. We quantified signal processing using linear response theory supported by numerical simulations in networks composed of two different models: One model generates a renewal process where interspike intervals are not correlated while the other generates a nonrenewal process where subsequent interspike intervals are negatively correlated. Our results show that the fractional rate of increase in information rate as a function of network size and stimulus intensity is lower for the nonrenewal model than for the renewal one. We show that this is mostly due to the lower amount of effective noise in the nonrenewal model. We also show the surprising result that coupling has opposite effects in renewal and nonrenewal networks: Excitatory (inhibitory coupling) will decrease (increase) the information rate in renewal networks while inhibitory (excitatory coupling) will decrease (increase) the information rate in nonrenewal networks. We discuss these results and their applicability to other classes of excitable systems.

Developmental control of ultrasound sensitivity by a juvenile hormone analog in crickets (Teleogryllus oceanicus)

Cricket ears are sensitive to ultrasound as well as to lower, cricket-like sound frequencies. Ultrasound stimuli evoke negative phonotaxis in flying crickets, a behavior that has been interpreted as a defensive response against predation by echolocating bats. A recent study on a wing-dimorphic species, Gryllus texensis, showed that short-winged individuals, which are incapable of flight, are less sensitive to ultrasound, but not to lower sound frequencies, than their long-winged counterparts. The developmental decision to develop as a long- or short-winged individual is made during the last two larval instars, and there is some evidence suggesting that juvenile hormone (JH) has an instructive role, such that high levels of JH result in short-winged individuals. We show that treatment of last-instar larvae of a monomorphic long-winged species, Teleogryllus oceanicus, with a JH analog causes a decrease in sensitivity to ultrasound, but not to the lower sound frequency used for intraspecific communication.

Flight and hearing: ultrasound sensitivity differs between flight-capable and flight-incapable morphs of a wing-dimorphic cricket species

We studied frequency sensitivity of flight-capable and flight-incapable forms of the wing-dimorphic cricket Gryllus texensis, using both behavioral and neurophysiological measurements. Behavioral thresholds for negative phonotaxis in response to ultrasound stimuli are lower for long-winged (i.e. flight-capable) crickets than for short-winged (flight-incapable) individuals, whereas thresholds for positive phonotaxis in response to a calling-song model do not differ. Similarly, thresholds of the identified interneurons ON1 and AN2 differ between flight morphs for high sound frequencies but not for the frequency of calling song. Our results show that sensitivity to ultrasound is closely linked to flight ability, and thus to the risk of predation from aerially hawking bats. We suggest that sensitivity to ultrasound is one of a suite of flight-associated characteristics, the development of which may be under common hormonal regulation.

Spike-frequency adaptation generates intensity invariance in a primary auditory interneuron

Adaptation of the spike-frequency response to constant stimulation, as observed on various timescales in many neurons, reflects high-pass filter properties of a neuron's transfer function. Adaptation in general, however, is not sufficient to make a neuron's response independent of the mean intensity of a sensory stimulus, since low frequency components of the stimulus are still transmitted, although with reduced gain. We here show, based on an analytically tractable model, that the response of a neuron is intensity invariant, if the fully adapted steady-state spike-frequency response to constant stimuli is independent of stimulus intensity. Electrophysiological recordings from the AN1, a primary auditory interneuron of crickets, show that for intensities above 60 dB SPL (sound pressure level) the AN1 adapted with a time-constant of approximately 40 ms to a steady-state firing rate of approximately 100 Hz. Using identical random amplitude-modulation stimuli we verified that the AN1's spike-frequency response is indeed invariant to the stimulus' mean intensity above 60 dB SPL. The transfer function of the AN1 is a band pass, resulting from a high-pass filter (cutoff frequency at 4 Hz) due to adaptation and a low-pass filter (100 Hz) determined by the steady-state spike frequency. Thus, fast spike-frequency adaptation can generate intensity invariance already at the first level of neural processing.

Efficient inhibition of bursts by bursts in the auditory system of crickets

In crickets, auditory information about ultrasound is carried bilaterally to the brain by the AN2 neurons. The ON1 neuron provides contralateral inhibitory input to AN2, thereby enhancing bilateral contrast between the left and right AN2s, an important cue for sound localization. We examine how the structures of the spike trains of these neurons affect this inhibitory interaction. As previously shown for AN2, ON1 responds to salient peaks in stimulus amplitude with bursts of spikes. Spike bursts, but not isolated spikes, reliably signal the occurrence of specific features of the stimulus. ON1 and AN2 burst at similar times relative to the amplitude envelope of the stimulus, and bursts are more tightly time-locked to stimulus feature than the isolated spikes. As a consequence, spikes that, in the absence of contralateral inhibition, would occur within AN2 bursts are more likely to be preceded by spikes in ON1 (mainly also in bursts) than are isolated AN2 spikes. This leads to a large decrease in the burst rate of the inhibited AN2. We conclude that the match in coding properties of ON1 and AN2 allows contralateral inhibition to be most efficient for those portions of the response that carry the behaviourally relevant information, i.e. for bursts.

A behavioral role for feature detection by sensory bursts

Brief episodes of high-frequency firing of sensory neurons, or bursts, occur in many systems, including mammalian auditory and visual systems, and are believed to signal the occurrence of particularly important stimulus features, i.e., to function as feature detectors. However, the behavioral relevance of sensory bursts has not been established in any system. Here, we show that bursts in an identified auditory interneuron of crickets reliably signal salient stimulus features and reliably predict behavioral responses. Our results thus demonstrate the close link between sensory bursts and behavior.

Nonlinear information processing in a model sensory system

Understanding the mechanisms by which sensory neurons encode and decode information remains an important goal in neuroscience. We quantified the performance of optimal linear and nonlinear encoding models in a well-characterized sensory system: the electric sense of weakly electric fish. We show that linear encoding models generally perform better under spatially localized stimulation than under spatially diffuse stimulation. Through pharmacological blockade of feedback input and spatial saturation of the receptive field center, we show that there is significantly less synaptic noise under spatially diffuse stimuli as compared with spatially localized stimuli. Modeling results suggest that pyramidal cells nonlinearly encode sensory information through shunting in their dendrites and clarify the influence of synaptic noise on the performance of linear encoding models. Finally, we used information theory to quantify the performance of linear decoders. While the optimal linear decoder for spatially localized stimuli could capture 60% of the information in pyramidal cell spike trains, the optimal linear decoder for spatially diffuse stimuli could only capture 40% of the information. These results show that nonlinear decoders are necessary to fully access information in pyramidal cell spike trains, and we discuss potential mechanisms by which higher-order neurons could decode this information.

Stimulus-dependent auditory tuning results in synchronous population coding of vocalizations in the songbird midbrain

Physiological studies in vocal animals such as songbirds indicate that vocalizations drive auditory neurons particularly well. But the neural mechanisms whereby vocalizations are encoded differently from other sounds in the auditory system are unknown. We used spectrotemporal receptive fields (STRFs) to study the neural encoding of song versus the encoding of a generic sound, modulation-limited noise, by single neurons and the neuronal population in the zebra finch auditory midbrain. The noise was designed to match song in frequency, spectrotemporal modulation boundaries, and power. STRF calculations were balanced between the two stimulus types by forcing a common stimulus subspace. We found that 91% of midbrain neurons showed significant differences in spectral and temporal tuning properties when birds heard song and when birds heard modulation-limited noise. During the processing of noise, spectrotemporal tuning was highly variable across cells. During song processing, the tuning of individual cells became more similar; frequency tuning bandwidth increased, best temporal modulation frequency increased, and spike timing became more precise. The outcome was a population response to song that encoded rapidly changing sounds with power and precision, resulting in a faithful neural representation of the temporal pattern of a song. Modeling responses to song using the tuning to modulation-limited noise showed that the population response would not encode song as precisely or robustly. We conclude that stimulus-dependent changes in auditory tuning during song processing facilitate the high-fidelity encoding of the temporal pattern of a song.

Central projections of auditory receptor neurons of crickets

We describe the central projections of physiologically characterized auditory receptor neurons of crickets as revealed by confocal microscopy. Receptors tuned to ultrasonic frequencies (similar to those produced by echolocating, insectivorous bats), to a mid-range of frequencies, and a subset of those tuned to low, cricket-like frequencies have similar projections, terminating medially within the auditory neuropile. Quantitative analysis shows that despite the general similarity of these projections they are tonotopic, with receptors tuned to lower frequencies terminating more medially. Another subset of cricket-song-tuned receptors projects more laterally and posteriorly than the other types. Double-fills of receptors and identified interneurons show that the three medially projecting receptor types are anatomically well positioned to provide monosynaptic input to interneurons that relay auditory information to the brain and to interneurons that modify this ascending information. The more laterally and posteriorly branching receptor type may not interact directly with this ascending pathway, but is well positioned to provide direct input to an interneuron that carries auditory information to more posterior ganglia. These results suggest that information about cricket song is segregated into functionally different pathways as early as the level of receptor neurons. Ultrasound-tuned and mid-frequency tuned receptors have approximately twice as many varicosities, which are sites of transmitter release, per receptor as either anatomical type of cricket-song-tuned receptor. This may compensate in part for the numerical under-representation of these receptor types.