A study of neurone activity in the spiral ganglion of the cat's basal turn.

A small region of the spiral ganglion in the cat was surgically exposed through the round window. Metal microelectrodes were used to record extracellularly the electrical activity of single spiral ganglion cells. The response characteristics of the cells seemed to be, in general, similar to those seen for auditory-nerve fibres recorded with micropipets in the internal auditory meatus. Data are presented on spontaneous activity, tuning curves, responses to clicks, continuous tones, tone bursts and noise bursts. The relation between frequency selectivity of units and location along the basilar membrane is discussed. -Some units differed in behaviour from auditory-nerve fibres with respect to dead times in interspike-interval histograms and shapes of poststimulus-time histograms of responses to tone bursts and noise bursts. The significance of these deviations is unknown.