Suppression regions flank excitation in time-frequency and predate it on-CF

Evidence

Figure 4 shows second-order Wiener-kernel and STRF analyses from the responses of a single medium-spontaneous-rate (< 18 spikes s‑1 ) ANF, with CF 4.2 kHz, recorded in a NH chinchilla. The h 2 kernel is characterized by a series of parallel diagonal lines representing the non-linear interactions driving the ANF’s response to noise (Fig. 4a ; Recio-Spinoso et al. 2005 ). The STRF derived from h 2 shows suppressive regions flanking the main excitatory region along the frequency axis, with a high-to-low frequency glide (early-to-late) consistent with travelling-wave delay (Fig. 4b ). Decomposing h 2 into its excitatory and suppressive sub-kernels, we observe a broad area of suppressive tuning which overlaps with the excitatory tuning in time and frequency (Fig. 4d and f ). There is also an “on-CF” component to the suppression, occurring before the excitation. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3866

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains what a second-order Wiener-kernel decomposition reveals — excitatory vs suppressive sub-kernels — useful groundwork for the psychoacoustic concept of suppression.