Jan Gs great comments on manuscript and rebuttal

rebuttal2.tex

@@ -33,6 +33,10 @@
 
 \begin{document}
 
+Thank you for your valuable feedback. Line numbers mentioned in our
+responses refer to the new version of the manuscript, not the redlined
+one.
+
 \issue{\large Reviewer \#1}
 
 \issue{The manuscript "Spike generation in electroreceptor afferents
@@ -55,7 +59,8 @@
   the manuscript or inspire future research endeavors.}
 
 \response{Thank you for trying to make our manuscript more
-  biologist-friendly!}
+  biologist-friendly! And yes, some of your comments indeed inspired
+  our thinking for future projects.}
 
 \issue{First, I should point out that beyond the presence of a
   threshold-induced nonlinearity, the complex structure of the
@@ -81,11 +86,7 @@
   potentially contributing to the threshold nonlinearity. We now
   mention this in the methods when introducing the threshold
   nonlinearity (after eq. 13) and cite the corresponding
-  manuscripts. We also added a sentence there reiterating what we have
-  in the discussion, namely that the details of this nonlinearity are
-  not important in the context of the present manuscript, since we
-  compute all cross-spectra between the resulting amplitude modulation
-  and the spikes responses.}
+  manuscripts.}
 
 \issue{Second, and along the same lines, the discussion could be
   improved by mentioning the effects and significance of these
@@ -167,7 +168,7 @@
   averaged sine wave recorded via local electrodes adjacent to the
   gills exhibited an increase of 1 to 5\%, is this correct?}
 
-\response{No! We increased the amplitude of the white noise until the
+\response{We increased the amplitude of the white noise until the
   standard deviation (not the mean) of the resulting modulation of the
   EOD reached 1 to 5\,\%. We rephrased the description of the
   stimulation and hope that this is clearer now (lines 164--168).}
@@ -194,14 +195,15 @@
 \response{You are right about the phase shifts and that this does not
   ``significantly impact individual receptors response''. This is a
   standard stimulation procedure for characterizing receptor responses
-  that are located mainly on the sides of a fish's flat body. See, for
-  example, Hladnik and Grewe, 2023. And yes, this will probably impact
-  relative spike timing in distinct receptors and thus may also impact
-  the JAR mechanisms. However, this manuscript is about single
-  receptor responses and not about T-units, and we feel it is already
-  complicated enough. Therefore we would rather prefer to not open up
-  all these issues, since they are not relevant for the results we
-  present.}
+  that are located mainly on the sides of a fish's flat body as the
+  recording site is on the posterior branch of the lateral line
+  nerve. See, for example, Hladnik and Grewe, 2023. And yes, this will
+  probably impact relative spike timing in distinct receptors and thus
+  may also impact the JAR mechanisms. However, this manuscript is
+  about single receptor responses and not about T-units, and we feel
+  it is already complicated enough. Therefore we would rather prefer
+  to not open up all these issues, since they are not relevant for the
+  results we present.}
 
 \issue{Line 238. Are you referring to the terminal non-myelinated
   branches that connect receptor cells to the initial Ranvier node?
@@ -246,9 +248,9 @@
   P-units, but "much stronger" does not clearly convey this,
   especially in the abstract.}
 
-\response{We changed the sentence to ``...  we identify these
-  predicted nonlinear responses primarily in a few low-noise P-units
-  and in more than every second ampullary cell.''}
+\response{We changed the sentence to ``...  identify these predicted
+  nonlinear responses only in individual low-noise P-units, but in
+  more than half of the ampullary cells.''}
 
 \issue{(3) Figure 1A. "r" needs to be clearly defined here. Based on
   the text, it seems to be the baseline firing rate of the neuron, but
@@ -262,7 +264,8 @@
   be negative?}
 
 \response{We added a few sentences following equation (1) to motivate
-  the existence of negative frequencies in Fourier transforms.}
+  the existence of negative frequencies in Fourier transforms. And we
+  added a hint in the caption of figure 1B.}
 
 \issue{(5) Figure 3 and 4. Why are the power spectra clipped at such
   low frequencies? This makes it impossible to see peaks due to
@@ -279,8 +282,8 @@
   baseline firing rate (only three trials of 500ms duration). This is
   why the power spectra are very noisy. Also, for an introductory
   figure we prefer to only show the few peaks that are relevant for
-  the rest of the manuscript, such that the reader does not get
-  overwhelmed.}
+  the rest of the manuscript, to not overwhelm the reader right at the
+  start.}
 
 \issue{(6) Figure 3. Why are these example firing rates based on
   convolution with a 1 ms Gaussian kernel if the analyses were based
@@ -289,16 +292,16 @@
   actually analyzed. More fundamentally, why would a 2-fold difference
   in kernel width be appropriate for presentation vs. analysis?}
 
-\response{This was for ``historical'' reasons. We now decided to use the
-  1\,ms kernel for all figures and analysis. In doing so we also added
-  panels showing firing rates in addition to the response spectra in
-  figure 4. Using the more narrow kernel better reveals the details of
-  the time course of the firing rate and this way improves the
-  connection between the firing rate and the response spectra. In
-  figure 10, middle column, the range of possible values of the
-  response modulations is a bit enlarged by using the 1\,ms kernel,
-  but the correlations and their significance did not change a lot
-  either.}
+\response{Thank you for addressing this inconsistency. This was for
+  ``historical'' reasons. We now decided to use the 1\,ms kernel for
+  all figures and analysis. In doing so we also added panels showing
+  firing rates in addition to the response spectra in figure 4. Using
+  the more narrow kernel better reveals the details of the time course
+  of the firing rate and this way improves the connection between the
+  firing rate and the response spectra. In figure 10, middle column,
+  the range of possible values of the response modulations is a bit
+  enlarged by using the 1\,ms kernel, but the correlations and their
+  significance did not change a lot either.}
 
 \issue{(7) Figure 3D legend. The relationship between 2nd order AM
   (envelope) and the two nonlinear peaks should be made clear. I
@@ -320,14 +323,13 @@
 \issue{(8) Line 302. "not-small amplitude" is arbitrary and
   vague. Please be clearer and more precise.}
 
-\response{We added ``resulting in AM contrasts of 10\,\% that evoke
-  strong modulations in a P-unit's firing rate response''.}
+\response{We rephrased to two sentences in lines 323 -- 325.}
 
 \issue{(9) Figures 5C and 6C. For the stimuli with the red RAM
   waveforms, please make it clear which contrast is being represented
   by these traces, as responses to two different contrasts are shown.}
 
-\response{We added the shown stimulus contrasts to both figures.}
+\response{We added the contrast values to both figures.}
 
 \issue{(10) Figure 5E, F. The legend states that second-order
   susceptibility for both the low and high stimulus contrasts are
@@ -342,7 +344,7 @@
   ratios should result in larger nonlinearities?}
 
 \response{Yes, in figure 4 increasing stimulus contrast results in
-  stronger nonlinearities. There the stimuli are narrow-band sine
+  stronger nonlinearities. There, the stimuli are narrow-band sine
   waves. However, as pointed out in the context of figure 7, when
   using a broad-band noise stimulus instead, this stimulus by itself
   adds background noise to the system that linearizes the
@@ -371,8 +373,11 @@
   stimulating frequencies or their sum with the neuron's baseline
   firing rate is required. This is all addressed in the (now second
   final) paragraph of the ``Nonlinear encoding in P-units'' section.
-  However, we agree that the comparative aspect of the conclusion
-  could be expanded. We therefore added one more final speculative
-  sentence to the conclusion.}
+  Nevertheless, in response to reviewer \#1, we added another
+  paragraph discussing various behaviors that modulate the EOD
+  frequency and how these may exploit the weakly nonlinear
+  interactions.  However, we agree that the comparative aspect of the
+  conclusion could be expanded. We therefore added one more final
+  speculative sentence to the conclusion.}
 
 \end{document}