Auditory Processing of Echoes: Representation of Acoustic Information from the Environment in the Bat Cerebral Cortex

Clues to understanding information processing by the auditory system are hidden in the differences in response properties of single neurons within and among individual auditory nuclei. In order to explore neural mechanisms for signal processing, we thus focus our research on differences in response properties among neurons as well as response properties per se. All the acoustic information of use to an animal is contained in the activity of its auditory nerve. In mammals, all nerve fibers with identical best frequencies show nearly the same response pattern and frequency-tuning curve. In bats, all these primary auditory neurons respond to both emitted orientation sounds (also called pulses) and echoes by discharging multiple action potentials to each. The role of the central auditory system is to process this activity and send appropriate information to regulate the motor system, if necessary.