Spontaneous and driven responses of semicircular canal primary afferents in the unanesthetized pigeon.

Spontaneous activity from 120 vestibular semicircular canal (SC) primary afferents and driven responses from 20 SC primary afferents to 2.3-decade bandwidth (0.029-6.152 Hz) sum of sinusoidal angular rotations were characterized in 10 unanesthetized pigeons. The results were compared with those previously gathered from barbiturate anesthetized pigeons. The average spontaneous mean firing rate (MFR) of SC primary afferents in unanesthetized pigeons was found to be 168 impulses per second (I/s), n = 120, and is approximately 80% higher than that for SC primary afferents in anesthetized pigeons [93 I/s, n = 149 (Ref. 9) and 92 I/s, n = 124 (Ref. 22)]. The spontaneous discharge of SC primary afferents from unanesthetized pigeons was classified according to the coefficient of variation (CV) of 512-1,024 interspike intervals (ISIs) into regular (CV less than 0.1), intermediate (0.1 less than or equal to CV less 0.4), and irregular (0.4 less than or equal to CV) categories. The percentages of SC primary afferents falling within each CV category were similar for unanesthetized and anesthetized pigeons (22). The relation between the spontaneous mean ISI and its standard deviation (SD) for SC primary afferents in the unanesthetized pigeon is best described by a power function model, which provides a significantly better fit than does a linear model. The parameters of this power function model are similar for SC primary afferents in unanesthetized and anesthetized pigeons (10). The spontaneous ISIs of individual SC primary afferents in the unanesthetized pigeon were found to be distributed either normally, log-normally, or according to the first passage time of the Wiener-Levy (WL) process. The gain of anterior SC primary afferents at 0.25 Hz is similar for anesthetized (2.93 I X s-1 X deg-1 X s-1, n = 14) (11) and for unanesthetized (3.01 I X s-1 X deg-1 X s-1, n = 14) pigeons. Bode plots constructed from the responses to sum sinusoidal angular accelerations reveal that SC primary afferents in unanesthetized pigeons display a phase lead and gain enhancement at frequencies between 0.6 and 6 Hz.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)