15.05.2024: Felix Felmy (Universität Hannover): Neurons of the INLL integrate frequencies and break the tonotopy, HS 02.11, Institut für Biologie, Bereich Zoologie, Universitätsplatz 2, 13:15 Uhr
In the auditory brainstem sound frequencies are predominantly represented tonotopically. Yet frequency and cross-frequency integration is considered to extract crucial information about the acoustic environment and is therefore relevant for representing auditory space. Neurons in the intermediate nucleus of the lateral lemniscus (INLL) have been proposed to contribute to this integration process, however their biophysical, synaptic and morphological features remain largely uncharacterized so far.
In my presentation I will show that the INLL is composed of a heterogeneous neuronal population (investigated by electrophysiological and PatchSeq single-cell transcriptomics) that is not bound to a strict tonotopy. This population provides a substrate for cross-frequency integration covered by a large range of biophysical integration times. Therefore, we propose that population-based activity patterns are employed as a coding strategy in the INLL.