Responses of medial geniculate neurons to species-specific vocalized sounds in the guinea pig.

Abstract

We obtained extracellular single-unit recordings in the medial geniculate body (MG) of guinea pigs, and studied the responses of MG neurons to pure-tone stimuli and to species-specific vocalized sounds. Of pure-tone sensitive neurons with a characteristic frequency (CF) within the frequency range of the vocalized sounds, only 29% responded to the vocalized sound, 6% were inhibited by the vocalized sound, and 30% showed no response to the vocalized sounds. The responsiveness of MG neurons to the vocalized sound was low. The majority of neurons responsive to the vocalized sounds showed discharge patterns which were not predictable from response properties to pure tones. These results suggest the presence of neurons which specifically respond to the complex feature of sound in the subcortical MG level of the guinea pig.