Entracking creates flat rate plateau codes that supplant tonotopic place codes

Evidence

If a population of central neurons shows entracking, this property causes a stratification in the rate-place profile. Instead of a vertical or “hilly” profile where resolved components cause local increases in firing rate and unresolved components lead to a broad mound of activity, entracking generates horizontally flattened profiles or buttes, for which firing rate is dictated by the dominant interval between spikes fed to neurons in these frequency channels. For multiple, truly resolved components, a staircase of buttes would result with increasing firing rates corresponding to the frequency of successive harmonics. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4520

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘butte’ — a horizontally flattened rate-place profile produced by entracking, distinct from the tonotopic ‘hilly’ resolved/unresolved profile.
• SEED: The butte staircase as a rate code that is ‘orthogonal’ to the tonotopic map is a vivid geometric metaphor for how a second neural code can coexist with the classic place map.