Neurometric correlates to sensitive high-frequency sound amplitude modulation detection by mice

Abstract

AbstractAmplitude modulation (AM) is a common feature of natural sounds, including speech and animal vocalizations. Here, we used operant conditioning and in vivo electrophysiology to determine the AM detection threshold of mice as well as its underlying neuronal encoding. Mice were trained in a Go-NoGo task to detect the transition to AM within a noise stimulus designed to prevent the use of spectral side-bands or a change in intensity as alternative cues. Our results indicate that mice, in comparison with other species, detect high modulation frequencies up to 512 Hz exceptionally well, but show poor performance at low frequencies. Our in vivo multielectrode recordings in the inferior colliculus (IC) of both anesthetized and awake mice revealed a few single units with remarkable phase-locking ability to 512 Hz modulation, but not sufficient to explain the good behavioral detection. Using a model of the population response that combined dimensionality reduction with threshold detection, we reproduced the general high-pass characteristics of behavioral detection based on a subset of neurons showing the largest firing rate change (both increase and decrease) in response to AM. Our data thus identify candidate neurons in the IC to explain the high-pass transfer function for AM detection in the mouse.