A corollary discharge maintains auditory sensitivity during sound production

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Item Type:	Article
Title:	A corollary discharge maintains auditory sensitivity during sound production
Creators Name:	Poulet, J.F.A. and Hedwig, B.
Abstract:	Speaking and singing present the auditory system of the caller with two fundamental problems: discriminating between self-generated and external auditory signals and preventing desensitization. In humans and many other vertebrates, auditory neurons in the brain are inhibited during vocalization but little is known about the nature of the inhibition. Here we show, using intracellular recordings of auditory neurons in the singing cricket, that presynaptic inhibition of auditory afferents and postsynaptic inhibition of an identified auditory interneuron occur in phase with the song pattern. Presynaptic and postsynaptic inhibition persist in a fictively singing, isolated cricket central nervous system and are therefore the result of a corollary discharge from the singing motor network. Mimicking inhibition in the interneuron by injecting hyperpolarizing current suppresses its spiking response to a 100-dB sound pressure level (SPL) acoustic stimulus and maintains its response to subsequent, quieter stimuli. Inhibition by the corollary discharge reduces the neural response to self-generated sound and protects the cricket's auditory pathway from self-induced desensitization.
Keywords:	Acoustic Stimulation, Animal Communication, Auditory Pathways, Auditory Perception, Central Nervous System, Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials, Interneurons, Physiological Feedback, Afferent Neurons, Sensitivity and Specificity, Sound, Wing, Animals, Gryllidae
Source:	Nature
ISSN:	0028-0836
Publisher:	Nature Publishing Group
Volume:	418
Number:	6900
Page Range:	872-876
Date:	22 August 2002
Official Publication:	https://doi.org/10.1038/nature00919
PubMed:	View item in PubMed

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