DOI: 10.5061/dryad.qv9s4mwn4
title: Single-unit auditory nerve fibre responses of young-adult and aging gerbils

description: This dataset was collected to study the functional consequences of
 age-related hearing loss for the auditory nerve, which carries acoustic
 information from the periphery to the central auditory system. Using
 high-impedance glass electrodes, raw voltage traces and spike times were
 recorded from more than one thousand single fibres of the auditory nerve
 of young-adult, middle-aged, and old Mongolian gerbils raised in a quiet
 environment. The dataset contains not only responses to simple acoustic
 stimuli to characterize the fibres, but also to more complex stimuli, such
 as speech logatomes in background noise and Schroeder-phase stimuli. A
 software toolbox is provided to search through the dataset, to plot
 various analysed outcomes, and to give insight into the analyses. This
 dataset may serve as a valuable resource to test further hypotheses about
 age-related hearing loss. Additionally, it can aid in optimizing available
 computational models of the auditory system, which can contribute to, or
 eventually even fully replace, animal experiments.
description: The dataset presented here contains the raw waveforms and spike
 times from single auditory nerve fibres of young-adult, middle-aged, and
 old gerbils, while presenting a variety of acoustic stimuli to assess the
 functioning of the single fibres. Gerbils were anesthetized with
 ketamine/xylazine injections and auditory brainstem responses (a type of
 compound response) were recorded to derive a measure of their general
 hearing sensitivity. The auditory nerve was approached dorsally through
 the cerebellum and a sharp, high-impedance glass electrode was slowly
 moved through the nerve. Single-unit recordings were made for as long as
 the surgical preparation was stable. Afterwards, spikes in the data were
 identified, data files were organized into folders of one single unit,
 data were analysed to characterize the fibre, and a set of criteria was
 used to ensure the single unit derived from the auditory nerve bundle.
 Methods are described in detail in the accompanying manuscript. 
description: # Single-unit auditory nerve fibre responses of young-adult and aging
 gerbils
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.qv9s4mwn4](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.qv9s4mwn4) This dataset contains the raw and processed data derived from single-unit auditory nerve fibre recordings in young-adult and aging gerbils. Using high-impedance, glass electrodes, raw voltage traces and spike times were recorded from over one-thousand single fibres of the auditory nerve of Mongolian gerbils raised in a quiet environment. Software was written and tested in MATLAB version R2023b. ## Description of the data and file structure All raw, processed, and metadata of one animal is saved in one datafile ('G#.mat'). Such a .mat file contains one variable, 'exp', which is structured equally between all experiments. The content of each field in this struct is described in the document 'Data_Structure.pdf'. An overview of the metadata of each animal, e.g. age, hearing sensitivity, presented complex acoustic stimuli, number of single fibres, etc., can be found in 'metadata.csv'. Furthermore, there is one file with all animals combined into one struct called 'all_AN_data.mat'. In this file, the raw waveforms are removed to make the file size manageable. This file can be used to plot the outcomes of the analyses, e.g. best frequency vs. threshold of all fibres. For more details, please see the accompanying Data Descriptor manuscript. **Code to help search through the dataset** Three scripts are provided to help the user search through the full dataset as well as within a struct of one animal. *check_dataset_metadata.m* loops through the 'all_exp' struct and focusses on the metadata of the experiments. It recreates the metadata sheet, which can be used to select an animal of interest and investigate it further in *check_dataset_animal.m*. *check_dataset_units.m* loops through the 'all_exp' struct and focusses on the analysed outcomes of the single units. It can be used to plot any of these outcomes against each other, typically with the fibre’s best frequency on the horizontal axis. *check_dataset_animal.m* loops through the units of an ‘*exp*’ struct of one animal. It generates a scatterplot of the threshold against the best frequency of all the fibre’s recorded in that animal and a plot with all rate-level functions of that animal plotted in one graph. It also calls the function *check_AN.m*, which plots of a given recording the unfiltered first trial, the inter-spike interval histogram, the first 300 spike waveforms, and the median spike waveform +/- 95% confidence interval. The script also calls the function *makePSTH.m*, which is used to generate a peri-stimulus time histogram (PSTH) of all responses to tone bursts at or close to a given stimulus level above the fibre’s threshold. **Code to re-analyse the spike times for auditory nerve fibre characterization** The script *call_extract_func.m* calls all functions that were used to generate the analysed outcomes of one unit of one animal. These include the following functions: 1.     *BFextract_func.m*, which generates the frequency-response curve to derive best frequency. 2.     *CFextract_func.m*, which generates the receptive field and tuning curve to derive characteristic frequency, threshold, and Q10dB, a measure of frequency selectivity. 3.     *PHextract_func.m*, which calculates vector strength and plots it as a function of stimulus level. 4.     *CLICKextract_func.m*, which calculates click latency in three different ways and visually demonstrates the outcomes of each method. 5.     *RLFextract_func.m*, which generates the rate-level function to derive threshold and rates at each stimulus level. 6.     *SRextract_func.m*, which calculates the spontaneous rate from a long recording in silence. ## Sharing/Access information The data and software are available in the Auditory Modeling Toolbox v1.6 under data_heeringa2024 and exp_heeringa2024. In addition, the data are converted to the .nwb format and can be accessed on Dandi archive through: [https://doi.org/10.48324/dandi.001262/0.241205.0959](https://doi.org/10.48324/dandi.001262/0.241205.0959)  ## Versioning information Version 1 (March 2024): This is version associated with the data presented in the Scientific Data manuscript. Following versions will only add data to this dataset, but not change the structure. Version 2 (April 2025): In this version, responses to SAM tones in quiet and in notched noise are added to the data structs. Furthermore, all individual animal structs are now stored in one .zip file. Version 3 (June 2025): This version contains data from 17 additional animals, most of which were treated with ouabain. This metadata can be found in the info field of each animal. Furthermore, responses to TFS1 stimuli are added to the data structs.