Bernhard H. Gaese

We compared deficits after noise trauma in different rodents that are typically used in hearing research (Mongolian gerbil, rat, and mouse). We observed noise-induced threshold changes and alterations in the activity of processing auditory information along the ascending auditory pathway. Our results reveal pronounced differences in the characteristics of trauma-induced damage in these different rodent groups.

Experiments in rodent animal models help to reveal the characteristics and underlying mechanisms of pathologies related to hearing loss such as tinnitus or hyperacusis. However, a reliable understanding is still lacking. Here, four different rat strains (Sprague Dawley, Wistar, Long Evans, and Lister Hooded) underwent comparative analysis of electrophysiological (auditory brainstem responses, ABRs) and behavioral measures after noise trauma induction to differentiate between strain-dependent trauma effects and more consistent changes across strains, such as frequency dependence or systematic temporal changes. Several hearing- and trauma-related characteristics were clearly strain-dependent. Lister Hooded rats had especially high hearing thresholds and were unable to detect a silent gap in continuous background noise but displayed the highest startle amplitudes. After noise exposure, ABR thresholds revealed a strain-dependent pattern of recovery. ABR waveforms varied in detail among rat strains, and the difference was most prominent at later peaks arising approximately 3.7 ms after stimulus onset. However, changes in ABR waveforms after trauma were small compared to consistent strain-dependent differences between individual waveform components. At the behavioral level, startle-based gap-prepulse inhibition (gap-PPI) was used to evaluate the occurrence and characteristics of tinnitus after noise exposure. A loss of gap-PPI was found in 33% of Wistar, 50% of Sprague Dawley, and 75% of Long Evans rats. Across strains, the most consistent characteristic was a frequency-specific pattern of the loss of gap-PPI, with the highest rates at approximately one octave above trauma. An additional range exhibiting loss of gap-PPI directly below trauma frequency was revealed in Sprague Dawley and Long Evans rats. Further research should focus on these frequency ranges when investigating the underlying mechanisms of tinnitus induction.

The acoustic startle response and its modulation by non-startling prepulses, presented shortly before the startle-eliciting stimulus, is a broadly applied test paradigm to determine changes in neural processing related to auditory or psychiatric disorders. Modulation by a gap in background noise as a prepulse is especially used for tinnitus assessment. However, the timing and frequency-related aspects of prepulses are not fully understood. The present study aims to investigate temporal and spectral characteristics of acoustic stimuli that modulate the acoustic startle response in rats and gerbils. For noise-burst prepulses, inhibition was frequency-independent in gerbils in the test range between 4 and 18 kHz. Prepulse inhibition by noise-bursts in rats was constant in a comparable range (8 to 22 kHz), but lower outside this range. Purely temporal aspects of prepulse–startle-interactions were investigated for gap-prepulses focusing mainly on gap duration. While very short gaps had no (rats) or slightly facilitatory (gerbils) influence on the acoustic startle response, longer gaps always had a strong inhibitory effect. Inhibition increased with durations up to 75 ms and remained at a high level of inhibition for durations up to 1000 ms for both, rats and gerbils. Determining spectral influences on gap-prepulse inhibition revealed that gerbils were unaffected in, again, the limited frequency range tested (4–18 kHz). The more detailed analysis in rats revealed a variety of frequency-dependent effects. Gaps in pure-tone background elicited constant and high inhibition (around 75%) over a broad frequency range (4–32 kHz). For gaps in noise-bands, on the other hand, a clear frequency-dependency was found: Inhibition was around 50% at lower frequencies (6–14 kHz) and around 70% at high frequencies (16–20 kHz). This pattern of frequency-dependency in rats was specifically resulting from the inhibitory effect by the gaps, as revealed by detailed analysis of the underlying startle amplitudes. An interaction of temporal and spectral influences, finally, resulted in higher inhibition for 500-ms gaps than for 75-ms gaps at all frequencies tested. Improved prepulse paradigms based on these results are well suited to quantify the consequences of central processing disorders.

In order to structure the sensory environment our brain needs to detect changes in the surrounding that might indicate events of presumed behavioral relevance. A characteristic brain response presumably related to the detection of such novel stimuli is termed mismatch negativity (MMN) observable in human scalp recordings. A candidate mechanism underlying MMN at the neuronal level is stimulus-specific adaptation (SSA) which has several characteristics in common. SSA is the specific decrease in the response to a frequent stimulus, which does not generalize to an interleaved rare stimulus in a sequence of events. SSA was so far mainly described for changes in the response to simple pure tone stimuli differing in tone frequency. In this study we provide data from the awake rat auditory cortex on adaptation in the responses to frequency-modulated tones (FM) with the deviating feature being the direction of FM modulation. Adaptation of cortical neurons to the direction of FM modulation was stronger for slow modulation than for faster modulation. In contrast to pure tone SSA which showed no stimulus preference, FM adaptation in neuronal data differed sometimes between upward and downward FM. This, however, was not the case in the local field potential data recorded simultaneously. Our findings support the role of the auditory cortex as the source for change-related activity induced by FM stimuli by showing that dynamic stimulus features such as FM modulation can evoke SSA in the rat in a way very similar to FM-induced MMN in the human auditory cortex.

Contralateral acoustic stimulation (CAS) with white noise and pure tone stimuli was used to assess frequency specificity of efferent olivocochlear control of cochlear mechanics in the gerbil. Changes of the cochlear amplifier can be monitored by distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs), which are a byproduct of the nonlinear amplification by the outer hair cells. We used the quadratic DPOAE f2-f1 as ipsilateral probe, as it is known to be sensitive to efferent olivocochlear activity. White noise CAS, used to evoke efferent activity, had maximal effects on the DPOAE level for f2-stimulus frequencies of 5–7 kHz. The dominant effect during CAS was a DPOAE level increase of up to 13.5 dB. The frequency specificity of the olivocochlear system was evaluated by presenting pure tones (0.5–38 kHz) as contralateral stimuli to evoke efferent activity. Maximal DPOAE level changes were triggered by CAS frequencies close to the frequency of the DPOAE elicitor tones (tested f2 range: 2.5–15 kHz). The effective CAS frequency range covered 1.4–2.4 octaves and was centered 0.42 octaves below the DPOAE elicitor tone f2. The frequency-specific effect of CAS with pure tones suggests a dedicated central control of mechanical adjustments for peripheral frequency processing.

Tinnitus often develops following inner ear pathologies, like acoustic trauma. Therefore, an acoustic trauma model of tinnitus in gerbils was established using a modulated acoustic startle response. Cochlear trauma evoked by exposure to narrow-band noise at 10 kHz was assessed by auditory brainstem responses (ABR) and distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAE). Threshold shift amounted to about 25 dB at frequencies > 10 kHz. Induction of a phantom-noise perception was documented by an acoustic startle response paradigm. A reduction of the gap-prepulse inhibition of acoustic startle (GPIAS) was taken as evidence for tinnitus at the behavioral level. Three to five weeks after trauma the ABR and DPOAE thresholds were back to normal. At that time, a reduction of GPIAS in the frequency range 16–20 kHz indicated a phantom noise perception. Seven weeks post trauma the tinnitus-affected frequency range became narrow and shifted to the center-trauma frequency at 10 kHz. Taken together, by investigating frequency-dependent effects in detail, this study in gerbils found trauma-evoked tinnitus developing in the frequency range bordering the low frequency slope of the induced noise trauma. This supports the theory of lateral inhibition as the physiological basis of tinnitus.

Frugivorous birds provide important ecosystem services by transporting seeds of fleshy fruited plants. It has been assumed that seed-dispersal kernels generated by these animals are generally leptokurtic, resulting in little dispersal among habitat fragments. However, little is known about the seed-dispersal distribution generated by large frugivorous birds in fragmented landscapes. We investigated movement and seed-dispersal patterns of trumpeter hornbills ( Bycanistes bucinator ) in a fragmented landscape in South Africa. Novel GPS loggers provide high-quality location data without bias against recording long-distance movements. We found a very weakly bimodal seed-dispersal distribution with potential dispersal distances up to 14.5 km. Within forest, the seed-dispersal distribution was unimodal with an expected dispersal distance of 86 m. In the fragmented agricultural landscape, the distribution was strongly bimodal with peaks at 18 and 512 m. Our results demonstrate that seed-dispersal distributions differed when birds moved in different habitat types. Seed-dispersal distances in fragmented landscapes show that transport among habitat patches is more frequent than previously assumed, allowing plants to disperse among habitat patches and to track the changing climatic conditions.