Delay accuracy in bat sonar is related to the reciprocal of normalized echo bandwidth, or Q

Big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) emit wideband, frequency-modulated biosonar sounds and perceive the distance to objects from the delay of echoes. Bats remember delays and patterns of delay from one broadcast to the next, and they may rely on delays to perceive target scenes. While emitting a series of broadcasts, they can detect very small changes in delay based on their estimates of delay for successive echoes, which are derived from an auditory time/frequency representation of frequency-modulated sounds. To understand how bats perceive objects, we need to know how information distributed across the time/frequency surface is brought together to estimate delay. To assess this transformation, we measured how alteration of the frequency content of echoes affects the sharpness of the bat's delay estimates from the distribution of errors in a psychophysical task for detecting changes in delay. For unrestricted echo frequency content and high echo signal-to-noise ratio, bats can detect extremely small changes in delay of about 10 ns. When echo bandwidth is restricted by filtering out low or high frequencies, the bat's delay acuity declines in relation to the reciprocal of relative echo bandwidth, expressed as Q, which also is the relative width of the target impulse response in cycles rather than time. This normalized-time dimension may be efficient for target classification if it leads to target shape being displayed independent of size. This relation may originate from cochlear transduction by parallel frequency channels with active amplification, which creates the auditory time/frequency representation itself.     

Salpingoureteral fistula: CT appearance.

Laparoscopic laser surgery is becoming increasingly common as treatment for endometriosis. We report a case of computed tomographic (CT) demonstration of salpingoureteral fistula secondary to laparoscopic laser surgery.     

The multiple functions of T stellate/multipolar/chopper cells in the ventral cochlear nucleus

Acoustic information is brought to the brain by auditory nerve fibers, all of which terminate in the cochlear nuclei, and is passed up the auditory pathway through the principal cells of the cochlear nuclei. A population of neurons variously known as T stellate, type I multipolar, planar multipolar, or chopper cells forms one of the major ascending auditory pathways through the brainstem. T Stellate cells are sharply tuned; as a population they encode the spectrum of sounds. In these neurons, phasic excitation from the auditory nerve is made more tonic by feedforward excitation, coactivation of inhibitory with excitatory inputs, relatively large excitatory currents through NMDA receptors, and relatively little synaptic depression. The mechanisms that make firing tonic also obscure the fine structure of sounds that is represented in the excitatory inputs from the auditory nerve and account for the characteristic chopping response patterns with which T stellate cells respond to tones. In contrast with other principal cells of the ventral cochlear nucleus (VCN), T stellate cells lack a low-voltage-activated potassium conductance and are therefore sensitive to small, steady, neuromodulating currents. The presence of cholinergic, serotonergic and noradrenergic receptors allows the excitability of these cells to be modulated by medial olivocochlear efferent neurons and by neuronal circuits associated with arousal. T Stellate cells deliver acoustic information to the ipsilateral dorsal cochlear nucleus (DCN), ventral nucleus of the trapezoid body (VNTB), periolivary regions around the lateral superior olivary nucleus (LSO), and to the contralateral ventral lemniscal nuclei (VNLL) and inferior colliculus (IC). It is likely that T stellate cells participate in feedback loops through both medial and lateral olivocochlear efferent neurons and they may be a source of ipsilateral excitation of the LSO.     

Corynebacterium group D2 pyelonephritis

We believe this represents the first known case of Group D2 pyelonephritis in a seventy-two-year-old white man. Previous to this report D2 organisms have been associated only with alkaline-encrusted cystitis and struvite stones in urology.     

Salpingoureteral fistula: CT appearance

Laparoscopic laser surgery is becoming increasingly common as treatment for endometriosis. We report a case of computed tomographic (CT) demonstration of salpingoureteral fistula secondary to laparoscopic laser surgery.     

Octopus cells of the mammalian ventral cochlear nucleus sense the rate of depolarization

Whole cell patch recordings in slices show that the probability of firing of action potentials in octopus cells of the ventral cochlear nucleus depends on the dynamic properties of depolarization. Octopus cells fired only when the rate of rise of a depolarization exceeded a threshold value that varied between 5 and 15 mV/ms among cells. The threshold rate of rise was independent of whether depolarizations were evoked synaptically or by the intracellular injection of current. Previous work showed that octopus cells are contacted by many auditory nerve fibers, each providing less than 1-mV depolarization. Summation of synaptic input from multiple fibers is required for an octopus cell to reach threshold. In firing only when synaptic depolarization exceeds a threshold rate, octopus cells fire selectively when synaptic input is sufficiently large and synchronized for the small, brief unitary excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) to sum to produce a rapidly rising depolarization. The sensitivity to rate of depolarization is governed by a low-threshold, alpha-dendrotoxin-sensitive potassium conductance (g(KL)). This conductance also shapes the peaks of action potentials, contributing to the precision in their timing. Firing in neighboring T stellate cells depends much less strongly on the rate of rise. They lack strong alpha-dendrotoxin-sensitive conductances. Octopus cells appear to be specialized to detect synchronization in the activation of groups of auditory nerve fibers, a common pattern in responses to natural sounds, and convey its occurrence with temporal precision.     

Role of intrinsic conductances underlying responses to transients in octopus cells of the cochlear nucleus.

Recognition of acoustic patterns in natural sounds depends on the transmission of temporal information. Octopus cells of the mammalian ventral cochlear nucleus form a pathway that encodes the timing of firing of groups of auditory nerve fibers with exceptional precision. Whole-cell patch recordings from octopus cells were used to examine how the brevity and precision of firing are shaped by intrinsic conductances. Octopus cells responded to steps of current with small, rapid voltage changes. Input resistances and membrane time constants averaged 2.4 MOmega and 210 microseconds, respectively (n = 15). As a result of the low input resistances of octopus cells, action potential initiation required currents of at least 2 nA for their generation and never occurred repetitively. Backpropagated action potentials recorded at the soma were small (10-30 mV), brief (0.24-0.54 msec), and tetrodotoxin-sensitive. The low input resistance arose in part from an inwardly rectifying mixed cationic conductance blocked by cesium and potassium conductances blocked by 4-aminopyridine (4-AP). Conductances blocked by 4-AP also contributed to the repolarization of the action potentials and suppressed the generation of calcium spikes. In the face of the high membrane conductance of octopus cells, sodium and calcium conductances amplified depolarizations produced by intracellular current injection over a time course similar to that of EPSPs. We suggest that this transient amplification works in concert with the shunting influence of potassium and mixed cationic conductances to enhance the encoding of the onset of synchronous auditory nerve fiber activity.