Influence of refractory properties on the response of single auditory nerve fibres to sinusoidal stimuli

The influence of refractoriness upon the response of single auditory nerve fibres to sinusoidal stimuli has been investigated by means of a simple 'recovery' model. It turned out that refractoriness causes not only a saturation of the mean discharge rate for high stimulus intensities, but also affects the shape of period histograms. If the stimulus intensity is increased, the mode of the histogram is shifted to the left, and finally, at high intensities, the histogram assumes a bimodal shape. The saturation of the discharge rate and the skewness of period histograms can also be explained by a transmitter release mechanism (Schroeder-Hall model). The investigations presented in this paper suggest that the influence of refractoriness on the response of auditory nerve fibres is greater than hitherto assumed.