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1 Section of Neurobiology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: gpollak{at}mail.utexas.edu.
Here we report on response properties and the role of inhibition in three brainstem nuclei of Mexican-free tailed bats, the inferior colliculus (IC), the dorsal nucleus of the lateral lemniscus (DNLL) and the intermediate nucleus of the lateral lemniscus (INLL). In each nucleus we documented the response properties evoked by both tonal and species-specific signals, and then evaluated the same features when inhibition was blocked. There are 3 main findings. First, DNLL cells have little or no surround inhibition and are unselective for communication calls, in that they responded to ~97% of the calls that were presented. Second, most INLL neurons are characterized by wide tuning curves and are unselective for species-specific calls. The third finding is that the IC population is strikingly different from the neuronal populations in the INLL and DNLL. Where DNLL and INLL neurons are unselective and respond to most or all of the calls in the suite we presented, most IC cells are selective for calls and, on average, responded to ~50% of the calls we presented. Additionally, the selectivity for calls in the majority of IC cells, as well as their tuning and other response properties, are strongly shaped by inhibitory innervation. Thus we show that inhibition plays only limited roles in the DNLL and INLL but dominates in the IC, where the various patterns of inhibition sculpt a wide variety of emergent response properties from the backdrop of more expansive and far less specific excitatory innervation.
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