Serotonin effects on frequency tuning of inferior colliculus neurons

We investigated the modulatory effects of serotonin on the tuning of 114 ne urons in the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus (ICc) of Mexican fr ee-tailed bats and how serotonin-induced changes in tuning influenced respo nses to complex signals. We obtained a "response area" for each neuron, def ined as the frequency range that evoked discharges and the spike counts evo ked by those frequencies at a constant intensity. We then iontophoretically applied serotonin and compared response areas obtained before and during t he application of serotonin. In 58 cells, we also assessed how serotonin-in duced changes in response areas correlated with changes in the responses to brief frequency-modulated (FM) sweeps whose structure simulated natural ec holocation calls. Serotonin profoundly changed tone-evoked spike counts in 60% of the neurons (68/114). In most neurons, serotonin exerted a gain cont rol, facilitating or depressing the responses to all frequencies in their r esponse areas. In many cells, serotonergic effects on tones were reflected in the responses to FM signals. The most interesting effects were in those cells in which serotonin selectively changed the responsiveness to only som e frequencies in the neuron's response area and had little or no effect on other frequencies. This caused predictable changes in responses to the more complex FM sweeps whose spectral components passed through the neurons' re sponse areas. Our results suggest that serotonin, whose release varies with behavioral state, functionally reconfigures the circuitry of the IC and ma y modulate the perception of acoustic signals under different behavioral st ates.