Faber Justin, Alampounti Alexandros C, Georgiades Marcos, Albert Joerg T, Bozovic Dolores
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095.
University College London Ear Institute, London WC1X 8EE, United Kingdom.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2025 Sep 9;122(36):e2500938122. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2500938122. Epub 2025 Sep 5.
Distortion products are tones produced through nonlinear effects of a system simultaneously detecting two or more frequencies. These combination tones are ubiquitous to vertebrate auditory systems and are generally regarded as byproducts of nonlinear signal amplification. It has previously been shown that several species of infectious-disease-carrying mosquitoes utilize these distortion products for detecting and locating potential mates. Furthermore, the mechanical tuning curve of the male mosquito flagellum was shown not to be aligned with that of its sensory neural elements. Using a generic theoretical model for acoustic sensing, we evaluate the signal-detection advantages and disadvantages that are implied by these two schemes: distortion product detection and cascading a signal through multiple layers of oscillator elements of different characteristic frequency. Last, we show that the combination of these two schemes yields a signal detector with enhanced frequency selectivity and speed of response, thus enabling the detection of transient, narrowband flight tones.
畸变产物是通过系统同时检测两个或更多频率的非线性效应产生的音调。这些组合音调在脊椎动物听觉系统中普遍存在，通常被视为非线性信号放大的副产品。此前已有研究表明，几种携带传染病的蚊子利用这些畸变产物来检测和定位潜在配偶。此外，雄蚊鞭毛的机械调谐曲线与其感觉神经元件的调谐曲线不一致。我们使用一个通用的声学传感理论模型，评估这两种方案所隐含的信号检测优缺点：畸变产物检测以及通过多层具有不同特征频率的振荡器元件级联信号。最后，我们表明这两种方案的结合产生了一种具有增强频率选择性和响应速度的信号探测器，从而能够检测瞬态、窄带飞行音调。
