Summary
Coding of auditory signals in the entire ventral-cord pathway of the migratory locust,Locusta migratoria, has been studied by extracellular recording of the responses of ascending neurons.
In order to exclude errors due to variation in the responses of neurons of a given type among different individuals, an effort was made to record succesively from the greatest possible number of single cells at each station in each animal. Neurons of one type tested in different animals gave very similar responses; this suggests that there is also little interindividual variation among neurons of other types. Thus the various neurons of these animals can be compared for analysis.
Apart from the responses to the standard artificial sound (white noise, 20 ms duration, 2/s repetition rate), responses to simulated conspecific songs received the greatest attention.
The coding of individual parameters is described, with the intensity of artificial sound stimuli as an example. Taken together, all the neuronal responses in an animal permit discrimination of white noise bursts differing in intensity by as little as 10 dB.
Responses to the conspecific song and simulations of it are often not directly comparable with those to simple white-noise bursts. The temporal structure of the conspecific song has a considerable effect on neuronal response. All the important temporal parameters—syllable duration, syllable rate, verse duration, verse rate—are reflected in the overall neuronal response. Thus all this information is available for further analysis in higher centers.
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Part of the program of Sonderforschungsbereich 114 (Bionach) Bochum; supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
We thank Prof. J. Schwartzkopff for his support and the critical reading of the manuscript. We are also grateful for technical help to Mrs. I. Klotz and Mrs. B. Brücher, and to E. Müller, L. Schillak and H.J. Steingräber.
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Kalmring, K., Kühne, R. & Moysich, F. The coding of sound signals in the ventral-cord auditory system of the migratory locust,Locusta migratoria . J. Comp. Physiol. 128, 213–226 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00656854
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00656854