Abstract
The nature of the stimulus-response relation for single auditory neurons is reflected in the properties of the Pre-Event Stimulus Ensemble: the ensemble of stimuli, preceding the occurrence of an action potential (neural event). This paper describes methods to analyse the spectro-temporal properties of this ensemble. These methods are based on the analytic signal representation of acoustic signals and functionals derived from it: the instantaneous amplitude and instantaneous frequency and the dynamic power spectrum. The procedures have been applied to a number of extra-cellular single unit recordings from the grassfrog, Rana temporatia L., recorded during presentation of an ensemble of tonal stimuli. The outcome of this analysis describes the spectro-temporal receptive field of the neuron under the present stimulus conditions. The procedure, based on the dynamic power spectrum is applicable to an arbitrary stimulus ensemble, thus allowing a comparison of the spectrotemporal receptive fields for different types of stimuli.
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Aertsen, A.M.H.J., Johannesma, P.I.M. & Hermes, D.J. Spectro-temporal receptive fields of auditory neurons in the grassfrog. Biol. Cybernetics 38, 235–248 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00337016
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00337016