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Distribution of auditory motion-direction sensitive neurons in the barn owl's midbrain

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Journal of Comparative Physiology A Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract.

Barn owls have neurons sensitive to acoustic motion-direction in the midbrain. We report here that acoustic motion-direction sensitive neurons with receptive-field centres in frontal auditory space are not randomly distributed. In the inferior colliculus and optic tectum in the left (right) brain, the responses of about two-thirds of the motion-direction sensitive neurons were sensitive to clockwise (counter-clockwise) motion. The midbrain contains maps of auditory space that represent about 15° of ipsilateral and all of contralateral space. Since a similar bias in motion-direction sensitivity was observed for neurons with receptive-field centres in ipsilateral as well as for neurons with receptive fields centres in contralateral auditory space, the brain side at which a motion-direction sensitive neuron was recorded was a more important predictor for the preferred direction of a cell than the spatial direction of the centre of the receptive field. Within one dorso-ventral electrode pass motion-direction sensitivity typically stayed constant suggesting a clustered or even a columnar-like organization. We hypothesize from these distributions that the right brain is important for orientating movements to the left hemisphere and vice versa.

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Wagner, .H., von Campenhausen, .M. Distribution of auditory motion-direction sensitive neurons in the barn owl's midbrain. J Comp Physiol A 188, 705–713 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-002-0342-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-002-0342-6

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