Abstract
For localization of a sound source, animals and humans process the microsecond interaural time differences of arriving sound waves. How nervous systems, consisting of elements with time constants of about and more than 1 ms, can reach such high precision is still an open question. In this Letter we present a hypothesis and show theoretical and computational evidence that a rather large population of slowly integrating neurons with inhibitory and excitatory inputs ( neurons) can detect minute temporal disparities in input signals which are significantly less than any time constant in the system.
- Received 9 January 2012
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.138104
© 2012 American Physical Society
Synopsis
Telling Left From Right
Published 29 March 2012
Large numbers of neurons can, according to a computational model, distinguish the timing of aural cues more finely than individual cells.
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