Selective attention in an insect auditory neuron

Abstract

Previous work (Pollack, 1986) showed that an identified auditory neuron of crickets, the omega neuron, selectively encodes the temporal structure of an ipsilateral sound stimulus when a contralateral stimulus is presented simultaneously, even though the contralateral stimulus is clearly encoded when it is presented alone. The present paper investigates the physiological basis for this selective response. The selectivity for the ipsilateral stimulus is a result of the apparent intensity difference of ipsi- and contralateral stimuli, which is imposed by auditory directionality; when simultaneous presentation of stimuli from the 2 sides is mimicked by presenting low- and high-intensity stimuli simultaneously from the ipsilateral side, the neuron responds selectively to the high-intensity stimulus, even though the low-intensity stimulus is effective when it is presented alone. The selective encoding of the more intense (= ipsilateral) stimulus is due to intensity-dependent inhibition, which is superimposed on the cell's excitatory response to sound. Because of the inhibition, the stimulus with lower intensity (i.e., the contralateral stimulus) is rendered subthreshold, while the stimulus with higher intensity (the ipsilateral stimulus) remains above threshold. Consequently, the temporal structure of the low-intensity stimulus is filtered out of the neuron's spike train. The source of the inhibition is not known. It is not a consequence of activation of the omega neuron. Its characteristics are not consistent with those of known inhibitory inputs to the omega neuron.