Entracking neurons keep firing rate clamped to stimulus frequency across SPLs

Evidence

Besides being present in various cell types, nuclei, and species, entracking has inherent properties that make it an attractive coding mechanism. It is remarkably invariant with SPL, i.e. once perfect entracking is reached, further increases in SPL do not affect average response rate: the rate-level function shows a limited (20 dB) dynamic range, and at higher SPLs the firing rate remains clamped at the stimulus frequency. At the population level, increases in SPL cause an increase in the number of entracking neurons. A second striking property is the low variability in firing rate. In some cases there is no variability: exactly the same number of spikes is generated in response to the same stimulus presented at the same or other SPLs. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4512

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘no variability — exactly the same number of spikes’ claim invites comparison with spike-count variability statistics familiar from the reader’s broader neuroscience background.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4512