Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 3, 2026
Morphological and Functional Evaluation of Ribbon Synapses at Specific Frequency Regions of the Mouse Cochlea
Published on: May 10, 2019
Neuronal sensitivity to the interaural time difference of the sound envelope in the mouse inferior colliculus
Munenori Ono1, Deborah C Bishop2, Douglas L Oliver2
1Department of Neuroscience, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, CT, USA, 06030-3401; Department of Physiology, Kanazawa Medical University, Ishikawa, 920-0293, Japan.
Abstract:
We examined the sensitivity of the neurons in the mouse inferior colliculus (IC) to the interaural time differences (ITD) conveyed in the sound envelope. Utilizing optogenetic methods, we compared the responses to the ITD in the envelope of identified glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons. More than half of both cell types were sensitive to the envelope ITD, and the ITD curves were aligned at their troughs. Within the physiological ITD range of mice (±50 μs), the ITD curves of both cell types had a higher firing rate when the contralateral envelope preceded the ipsilateral envelope. These results show that the circuitry to process ITD persists in the mouse despite its lack of low-frequency hearing. The sensitivity of IC neurons to ITD is most likely to be shaped by the binaural interaction of excitation and inhibition in the lateral superior olive.
