van der Heijden Marcel, Joris Philip X
Laboratory of Auditory Neurophysiology, Medical School, Campus Gasthuisberg, K. U. Leuven, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium.
J Neurosci. 2003 Oct 8;23(27):9194-8. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.23-27-09194.2003.
It is currently impossible to mechanically measure the overall vibration pattern of the intact mammalian cochlea because of its inaccessibility and vulnerability. At first sight, data from the auditory nerve are a poor substitute because of their limited temporal resolution. The nonlinear character of neural coding, however, causes low-frequency interactions among the components of multitone stimuli. We designed a novel stimulus for which these interactions take a particularly systematic form, and we recorded the response of the auditory nerve to this stimulus. A careful analysis of interactions in the data allowed us to reconstruct frequency transfer functions (both their amplitude and their phase) at multiple points spanning the entire length of the cochlea. The generic character of our stimuli and analysis suggests its wider use in nonlinear system analysis, particularly in those instances in which limitations in temporal resolution restrict the use of customary methods.
由于完整的哺乳动物耳蜗难以触及且较为脆弱，目前无法通过机械手段测量其整体振动模式。乍一看，来自听神经的数据是一个糟糕的替代方案，因为其时间分辨率有限。然而，神经编码的非线性特征会导致多音刺激成分之间的低频相互作用。我们设计了一种新型刺激，这些相互作用在该刺激下呈现出特别系统的形式，并且我们记录了听神经对这种刺激的反应。对数据中相互作用的仔细分析使我们能够在跨越耳蜗全长的多个点上重建频率传递函数（包括其幅度和相位）。我们的刺激和分析的一般性特征表明，它可更广泛地用于非线性系统分析，特别是在时间分辨率的限制使得传统方法无法使用的情况下。
