Primary auditory neurons of monkey

Abstract

It has been well known that in cats and guinea pigs very many neurons which compose the cochlear nerve belong to the secondary auditory neurons and not the primary one, since Galambos and Davis1) noticed it first. Irrespective of such an unfavorable situation most attempts to elucidate the peripheral mechanism of hearing have been performed on those animals by many authors because of their special structure of the middle and the inner ear. Trials made to know the nature of the primary auditory neuron in those animals for several years have revealed that they are evry difficult, though not impossible2-3). The nature of the primary auditory neuron is thus still not so well known as compared with other neurons at the upper levels of the brain. When the present authors studied on the cortical auditory neurons in a monkey4) they worked on the peripheral ones too for purposes of comparing and happened to notice that the latency of response to sound stimulation recorded from the single neuron in the cochlear nerve was extraordinarily short. Further examinations of those neurons offered them many new findings. In order to know if all those responses were obtained from the primary neurons histological studies were further performed of the cochlear nerve. © 1961, PHYSIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF JAPAN. All rights reserved.