Nearby auditory neurons share phase but vary widely in absolute latency

Evidence

In the penetration through the dorsoventral dimension of 5.2 kHz NL shown in Fig. 2b and 2c , recordings between 205–270 μm depths yielded three contralateral units with similar phase, but a latency difference of 4π (Fig. 2c , black arrow). The first two recordings had latencies of 3.33 and 3.32 ms, the third 2.91 ms. Thus, the recording with the shorter latency occurred almost 4π or 0.38 ms earlier than the first two, given a stimulus period of 192 μs (3.33 ms ‑2 * 0.192 ms = 2.94 ms). In other words, the phase delay of these peaks exhibited a narrow scatter, while the signal-front delay showed a large scatter, as had also been observed for the neurophonic (Wagner et al. 2005 ). — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 2863

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• QUESTION: How can adjacent neurons fire at the same phase despite signal-front delays differing by full cycles — does phase-locking actively reset absolute timing each cycle?

Related

• Phase delay scatters narrowly while signal-front delay scatters widely in the nucleus laminaris (similarity 0.85)
• Interaural time difference maps derive from precise phase delays, not absolute latencies (similarity 0.82)
• The ear detects binaural delays finer than individual neuron timing supports (similarity 0.82)
• Microsecond ITD precision arises from phase-delay matching, not absolute latency (similarity 0.80)
• Adjacent cochlear nucleus axons fire at matched phase despite differing absolute start times (similarity 0.80)
• Auditory nerve fibers maintain stimulus phase but vary absolute spike timing (similarity 0.79)
• The ear resolves low-frequency direction by measuring phase shift (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The ear detects binaural delays finer than individual neuron timing supports #expands (0.75) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1380