The auditory cortex

Recognizing other people, animals or objects by the sound they make is something that most of us take for granted. In fact, this ability relies on a series of rich and complex processes that begin when sounds are transduced into electrical signals by the exquisitely sensitive hair cell receptors that lie inside the cochlea of the inner ear. These messages are then encoded as volleys of action potentials by the axons of the vestibulo-cochlear nerve and transmitted via a complex chain of nuclei in the brainstem, midbrain and thalamus towards the auditory cortex (Figure 1A), where the interpretation and recognition of sounds is thought to take place.

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