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A MODEL OF THE AVIAN SUPERIOR OLIVARY NUCLEUS

Title of Thesis: A MODEL OF THE AVIAN SUPERIOR OLIVARY NUCLEUS Degree candidate: Raul Rodriguez Esteban Degree and year: Master of Science, 2002 Thesis directed by: Professor Jonathan Z. Simon Department of Electrical Engineering A computational model of the superior olivary nucleus (SON) was added to a model of the nucleus laminaris (NL) using the NEURON simulation language. The SON is an auditory nucleus situated in the ventrolateral region of the avian brainstem. It receives inputs from the ipsilateral nucleus laminaris (NL) and nucleus angularis (NA), and it projects back to the ipsilateral NL, NA and nucleus magnocellularis (NM). Its function is suggested to be inhibitory, controlling the size and precision of the spikes in the NL and the NM. However, the role it plays as a center of convergent input and divergent output is unknown. Our simulation shows how the SON improves the coincidence detection in the NL in different ways. First, the discrimination is increased because both coincidence detection spikes and erroneous spikes are reduced evenly, improving thus the ratio when the former outnumber the latter. Second, unilateral summation errors decrease because the inhibition helps differentiating these errors from binaural coincidence. The degree of heterogeneity of the SON cells leads us to hypothesize that it implies a specialization for the different kinds of inputs they receive. A MODEL OF THE AVIAN SUPERIOR OLIVARY NUCLEUS by Raul Rodriguez Esteban Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science 2002 Advisory Committee: Professor Jonathan Z. Simon Professor Timothy Horiuchi Professor Shihab A. Shamma