Unbalanced synaptic inhibition can create intensity-tuned auditory   cortex neurons
  Intensity-tuned auditory cortex neurons may be formed by intensity-tuned synaptic excitation. Synaptic inhibition has also been shown to enhance, and possibly even create intensity-tuned neurons. Here we show, using in vivo whole cell recordings in pentobarbital-anesthetized rats, that some intensity-tuned neurons are indeed created solely through disproportionally large inhibition at high intensities, without any intensity-tuned excitation. Since inhibition is essentially cortical in origin, these neurons provide examples of auditory feature-selectivity arising de novo at the cortex. 
Andrew Y. Y. Tan, Craig A. Atencio, Daniel B. Polley, Michael M.   Merzenich and Christoph E. Schreiner