Neural responses to simple simulated echoes in the auditory brain stem of the unanesthetized rabbit

D. C. Fitzpatrick, S. Kuwada, R. Batra and C. Trahiotis Department of Anatomy, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington 06030-3405, USA. 1. In most natural environments, sound waves from a single source will reach a listener through both direct and reflected paths. Sound traveling the direct path arrives first, and determines the perceived location of the source despite the presence of reflections from many different locations. This phenomenon is called the "law of the first wavefront" or "precedence effect." The time at which the reflection is first perceived as a separately localizable sound defines the end of the precedence window and is called "echo threshold." The precedence effect represents an important property of the auditory system, the neural basis for which has only recently begun to be examined. Here we report the responses of single neurons in the inferior colliculus (IC) and superior olivary complex (SOC) of the unanesthetized rabbit to a sound and its simulated reflection. 2. Stimuli were pairs of monaural or binaural clicks delivered through earphones. The leading click, or conditioner, simulated a direct sound, and the lagging click, or probe, simulated a reflection. Interaural time differences (ITDs) were introduced in the binaural conditioners and probes to adjust their simulated locations. The probe was always set at the neuron's best ITD, whereas the conditioner was set at the neuron's best ITD or its worst ITD. To measure the time course of the effects of the conditioner on the probe, we examined the response to the probe as a function of the conditioner-probe interval (CPI). 3. When IC neurons were tested with conditioners and probes set at the neuron's best ITD, the response to the probe as a function of CPI had one of two forms: early-low or early-high. In early-low neurons the response to the probe was initially suppressed but recovered monotonically at longer CPIs. Early-high neurons showed a nonmonotonic recovery pattern. In these neurons the maximal suppression did not occur at the shortest CPIs, but rather after a period of less suppression. Beyond this point, recovery was similar to that of early-low neurons. The presence of early-high neurons meant that the overall population was never entirely suppressed, even at short CPIs. Taken as a whole. CPIs for 50% recovery of the response to the probe among neurons ranged from 1 to 64 ms with a median of approximately 6 ms. 4. The above results are consistent with the ti