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. 2014 Oct 1;8:116. doi: 10.3389/fncir.2014.00116

FIGURE 6.

FIGURE 6

Binaural excitation and inhibition of the MSO circuit allows fine-tuning of the coincidence mechanism. (A) MSO neurons receive binaural excitatory inputs from SBCs in the AVCN of either side and binaural inhibitory inputs from LNTB and MNTB, which are innervated by GBCs of the ipsilateral and contralateral AVCN, respectively. (B) ITD tuning function of a gerbil MSO neuron (CF = 683Hz). Note that the peak of the function (“best ITD”) is positioned at a contralateral leading ITD outside of the range of physiological ITDs (gray area), while the slope spans the entire range of physiological ITDs. (C) Upper panel: blocking inhibition in MSO cells in vivo shifts the best ITD toward 0 ITD. Thus, inhibitory inputs tune the ITD of coincidence in MSO cells. Taken from Pecka et al. (2008). Lower panel: combination of ipsi- and contralateral inhibitory inputs (right-sided box) allow for both larger shifts of the best ITD (color-coded) than contralateral inhibition alone (left-sided box). Modified from Myoga et al. (2014).