Summary
Evoked potentials were recorded from the posterocentral nucleus in the dorsal diencephalon of leopard frogs (Rana p. pipiens) in response to acoustic stimulation. This electrophysiological study confirms the anatomical study by Neary (1974) of the existence of an auditory area within this nucleus.
The response of the auditory thalamic area showed a selectivity for stimuli that simultaneously excited both the amphibian and the basilar papillae in the inner ear. The magnitude of the evoked potential to the combination of either low (300 Hz) and high (1 700 Hz) or mid (600 Hz) and high (1700 Hz) frequency tones was much greater than the sum of the responses to the component tones individually (Fig. 5). This selective convergence is not seen in the torus semicircularis: in this midbrain center the sum of the responses to the individual tones is approximately equal to the magnitude of the response to the combination tone (Fig. 7).
The selectivity of the thalamic center for stimuli with patterned energy distributions is compared to the spectral combinations occurring within several of this species' vocal signals. This comparison indicates that the extraction of spectral patterns involves a hierarchical organization within the anuran's auditory system which probably plays a major role in processing complex sounds.
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This research was supported by the U.S. Public Health Service (NIH Research Grant NS-09244). We would like to thank Anne Moffat for her assistance in collecting data on the tuning characteristics of the VIIIth nerve units.
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Mudry, K.M., Constantine-Paton, M. & Capranica, R.R. Auditory sensitivity of the diencephalon of the leopard frogRana p. pipiens . J. Comp. Physiol. 114, 1–13 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00656805
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00656805