Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Synaptic Transformations Underlying Highly Selective Auditory Representations Of Learned Birdsong, Melissa J. Coleman, Richard Mooney
Synaptic Transformations Underlying Highly Selective Auditory Representations Of Learned Birdsong, Melissa J. Coleman, Richard Mooney
WM Keck Science Faculty Papers
Stimulus-specific neuronal responses are a striking characteristic of several sensory systems, although the synaptic mechanisms underlying their generation are not well understood. The songbird nucleus HVC (used here as a proper name) contains projection neurons (PNs) that fire temporally sparse bursts of action potentials to playback of the bird's own song (BOS) but are essentially silent when presented with other acoustical stimuli. To understand how such remarkable stimulus specificity emerges, it is necessary to compare the auditory-evoked responsiveness of the afferents of HVC with synaptic responses in identified HVC neurons. We found that inactivating the interfacial nucleus of the nidopallium …