Phillips D P
Department of Psychology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada.
Behav Brain Res. 1998 Jun;93(1-2):33-41. doi: 10.1016/s0166-4328(97)00139-3.
This article addresses two issues. Firstly, the hypothesis that response latency might be a neural code for tone frequency was examined in single-neuron data from the primary auditory cortex of anesthetized cats. Minimal response latencies for characteristic frequency (CF) tones were independent of neural CF. Mean response latencies for a constant amplitude CF tone were also independent of CF. These data, and the fact that cortical neurons do not have an obvious independent referent for stimulus onset time, do not support the view that latency is a code for frequency. Secondly, to investigate a simple threshold model of spike initiation time, we describe the prolongations of response latency with increases in stimulus rise time and their dependence on the peak amplitude of the stimulus. These data show that in cortical neurons, it is not the peak stimulus intensity which determines first-spike latency, and second, that the response latencies are systematically not those expected on the basis of simple threshold model.
本文探讨了两个问题。首先，在麻醉猫初级听觉皮层的单神经元数据中，研究了反应潜伏期可能是音调频率神经编码的假设。特征频率（CF）音调的最小反应潜伏期与神经CF无关。恒定振幅CF音调的平均反应潜伏期也与CF无关。这些数据，以及皮层神经元没有明显的刺激起始时间独立参考物这一事实，不支持潜伏期是频率编码的观点。其次，为了研究一个简单的动作电位起始时间阈值模型，我们描述了随着刺激上升时间增加反应潜伏期的延长及其对刺激峰值幅度的依赖性。这些数据表明，在皮层神经元中，决定首次动作电位潜伏期的不是刺激峰值强度，其次，反应潜伏期系统地不是基于简单阈值模型所预期的那些。
