Spectro-temporal characteristics of single units in the auditory midbrain of the lightly anaesthetised grass frog (Rana temporaria L) investigated with noise stimuli.

About 30% of the auditory units in the midbrain of the lightly anaesthetised grass frog respond in a sustained way to stationary pseudorandom noise. This response is described by the spectro-temporal receptive field (STRF), the regions in the spectro-temporal domain where the average second-order functional of those parts of the stimulus ensemble that precede the action potentials differ from the average second-order functional of the stimulus ensemble. By means of the STRF frequency selectivity, postactivation suppression and lateral suppression can quantitatively be studied under one and the same experimental condition. Auditory units that respond to stationary noise are localised in those parts of the torus where fibres enter from the olivary nucleus. They are characterised by relatively short latencies to tones and probably represent the first information-processing stage in the torus semicircularis.