| Abstract: | Single unit activity was studied in the inferior colliculi of anesthetized albino rats in response to pure tones of different frequencies. The dependence of inhibitory interaction between neurons on temporal parameters of the acoustic stimuli (duration, time interval between tones) was investigated. Quantitative characteristics of the lateral inhibitory zones, defined as ranges of frequencies inhibiting spike generation in response to the optimal or near-optimal frequency, were examined. The inhibitory zones were found to depend essentially on the interval between application of the conditioning and testing stimuli. With an increase in the interval the inhibitory interaction decreased. If the duration of the acoustic stimuli was shortened, interaction was reduced as regards both the width of the frequency band and the intensity evoking the inhibitory effect.I. P. Pavlov Institute of Physiology, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Leningrad. Translated from Neirofiziologiya, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 236–244, May–June, 1972. |
