![]() ![]() Because of its good low frequency hearing that parallels that of humans, studying sound localization and the processing of interaural time differences (ITDs) in this species has received particular attention. A prominent animal model to investigate the processing of binaural cues is the Mongolian gerbil. These binaural cues comprise minute differences in arrival time, intensity, or spectral content and allow for competences such as localizing sounds, and separating sources in complex acoustic environments. The processing of information carried by sounds arriving at the two ears is integral to many species' everyday tasks. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.įunding: Support was provided by CRC/Transregio 31 "The Active Auditory System" (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, ) (to GMK) and Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all" EXC1077 (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, ) (to GMK). Received: DecemAccepted: MaPublished: April 10, 2017Ĭopyright: © 2017 Tolnai et al. Malmierca, Universidad de Salamanca, SPAIN ![]() Verification of the use of the virtual headphones suggests that they can serve as a suitable substitute for conventional headphones particularly at frequencies ≤2 kHz.Ĭitation: Tolnai S, Beutelmann R, Klump GM (2017) Exploring binaural hearing in gerbils ( Meriones unguiculatus) using virtual headphones. At 2 kHz, ITD and ILD cues are likely used in a complementary way. The comparison of ITD and ILD thresholds with ITD and ILD thresholds derived from gerbils’ free-field performance suggests that ongoing ITD information is the main cue for sound localization at frequencies <2 kHz. For ILD stimuli, reliable responses were obtained for frequencies ≥2 kHz. For stimuli with ITD outside the gerbil's physiological range, responses were cyclic indicating the use of phase information when lateralizing narrow-band sounds. ITD sensitivity was frequency-dependent with the highest sensitivity observed at 1 kHz. For ITD stimuli, reliable responses were seen for frequencies ≤2.9 kHz, the highest frequency tested with ITD stimuli. All gerbils were able to lateralize sounds depending on the interaural time or level difference (ITD and ILD, respectively). We close this gap in knowledge by mimicking a headphone stimulation we use free-field loudspeakers and apply cross-talk cancellation techniques to present pure tones with binaural cues via “virtual headphones” to gerbils trained in a sound localization task. ![]() ![]() The gerbil's behavioral sensitivity to binaural cues, however, is unknown for the lack of appropriate stimulation paradigms in awake behaving gerbils. While its sound localization has been tested extensively under free-field stimulation, many neurophysiological studies use headphones to present signals with binaural localization cues. The Mongolian gerbil ( Meriones unguiculatus) has become a key species in investigations of the neural processing of sound localization cues in mammals. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |