Modeling the bat LSO tonotopical map refinement during development

Abstract

The Lateral Superior Olive (LSO) codes for interaural intensity difference (IID), a cue used for sound localization. Between birth and maturation, the LSO undergoes plasticity driven by input neurons activity. During this developmental phase, a number of inputs are pruned out leading to a refinement of the frequency tuning. The goal of this paper is to show that, using a physiologically plausible network architecture and neuronal model, the activity dependent plasticity of the LSO can be modeled using Spike-Timing Dependent Plasticity (STDP). In particular, we show that the time properties of STDP coupled with the fact that the frequency axis in the LSO can be considered as a delay axis leads to the observed tonotopical map refinement. The response of both the individual neurons as well as population are shown to be in accordance with data taken from physiological analysis. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.