Sensory receptor diversity establishes a peripheral population code for stimulus duration at low intensities.

ABSTRACT: Peripheral filtering is a fundamental mechanism for establishing frequency tuning in sensory systems. By contrast, detection of temporal features, such as duration, is generally thought to result from temporal coding in the periphery, followed by an analysis of peripheral response times within the central nervous system. We investigated how peripheral filtering properties affect the coding of stimulus duration in the electrosensory system of mormyrid fishes using behavioral and electrophysiological measures of duration tuning. We recorded from individual knollenorgans, the electrosensory receptors that mediate communication, and found correlated variation in frequency tuning and duration tuning, as predicted by a simple circuit model. In response to relatively high intensity stimuli, knoll

SUBMITTER: Lyons-Warren AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3394666 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature