The Magnitude and Phase of Temporal Modulation Transfer Functions in Cat Auditory Cortex

Temporal modulation transfer functions (tMTFs) in response to periodic click trains are presented for simultaneous recordings from primary auditory cortex, anterior auditory field, and secondary auditory cortex in 21 cats. The multiunit records could be separated in to 215 single-unit spike trains that allowed a reliable estimate of a group delay, which represents the cumulative delay for responses to repetitive stimuli. For approximately two-thirds of the 215 single units the group delay was within 7.5 msec of the response latency to the first clicks in the trains. For the remaining units, the group delay was on average ∼14 msec higher, and this may result from differences in synaptic properties. These findings were similar in the three cortical areas studied. The findings are modeled based on presynaptic facilitation and depression and pyramidal cell calcium kinetics, and a quantitative description of the magnitude of the tMTF was obtained that resulted in substantially shorter depression time constants (20 msec) than reported for visual cortex (300 msec). A small amount (0–5.5%) of facilitation that decayed with a time constant of 60 msec was obtained. Auditory cortical cells apparently have much faster recovery mechanisms than visual cortical cells. This allows for the ability of the auditory cortex to reliably track the rhythms that occur in natural sounds.