We use mathematical modeling in combination with physiological and anatomical knowledge of MSO neurons to plausibly explain how dendrite-targeting excitation and soma-targeting inhibition generate these field potentials. These field potentials exhibit distinctive spatial and temporal patterns in response to pure tone sounds. We study brainstem field potentials in the region of the medial superior olive (MSO) a critical center in the auditory pathway. Ideally, one could infer from these data the activity of neurons and synapses that generate field potentials, but this “inverse problem” is not easily solved. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Extracellular voltages (field potentials) are a common measure of brain activity.
By solving an inverse problem to uncover synaptic inputs from V e patterns we provide a new perspective on MSO physiology. MSO neurons perform a critical role in sound localization and binaural hearing. Importantly, our updated theory can be tested experimentally by blocking synaptic inputs. Aspects of inferred inputs are consistent with synaptic inputs to MSO neurons including the tendencies of inhibitory inputs to attenuate in response to high-frequency tones and to precede excitatory inputs. We interpret these inputs as dendrite-targeting excitation and soma-targeting inhibition (the latter contributes non-dipole-like features to V e responses). By applying our model to data, we estimate time courses of paired input currents to MSO neurons. Here, we enhance our theory to accurately reproduce dipole and non-dipole features of V e responses to monaural tones with frequencies ranging from 600 to 1800 Hz. We have observed, however, that V e patterns in cats of both sexes appear more monopole-like for lower-frequency tones. Previously, we developed a biophysically-based model of a binaural brainstem nucleus, the medial superior olive (MSO), that accounts qualitatively for observed dipole-like V e patterns in sustained responses to monaural tones with frequencies >∼1000 Hz ( Goldwyn et al., 2014). In the auditory brainstem of cats, spatial patterns of sound-evoked V e can resemble, strikingly, V e generated by current dipoles. Computational modeling can aid in identifying neural generators of field potentials. Extracellular voltage recordings ( V e field potentials) provide an accessible view of in vivo neural activity, but proper interpretation of field potentials is a long-standing challenge.
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