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Central Auditory Processing in the Mammalian System

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A History of Discoveries on Hearing

Part of the book series: Springer Handbook of Auditory Research ((SHAR,volume 77))

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Abstract

In this chapter, the history of our understanding of the central auditory system is summarized, starting with the early ideas of the Greeks and Romans and proceeding through the sha** of ideas to the 1960s. The history of studies of the central auditory system involves a combination of theoretical conceptualizations, anatomical studies, physiological measurements, and psychophysical measurements. These approaches, which have been ongoing for more than two thousand years, have coexisted, and each approach has influenced the others. The presentation here includes a variety of approaches, focusing on neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and mathematical modeling; the goal is to capture the empirical and theoretical conceptualizations, with a focus on understanding the central neural processing of sounds. Although psychophysical studies are important and provide the basis for our knowledge of auditory capabilities, these studies are not explicitly reviewed in this chapter. The modeling of the sensory processing and central processing is explicitly discussed here to explain the relation of overall hearing abilities to the processing in the succeeding stages of the auditory system. The mathematical details of the modeling are not included here, but the important ideas that arise from the modeling are reviewed in terms of our understanding of the operation of the overall system.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the many useful inputs from the editors; we appreciate the constructive style with which their suggestions were provided. We also want to thank several colleagues who were willing to read earlier versions of the manuscript in order to provide large-scale suggestions about content and structure, as well as some detailed recommendations. We specifically thank Eric Young and Theo Goverts for their detailed readings and suggestions. The time spent on this work was supported by NIH NIDCD (Grant R01 DC000100 for H. Steven Colburn and R01 DC019278 for Yi Zhou).

Compliance with Ethics Statement: H. Steven Colburn declares that he has no competing interest. Yi Zhou declares that she has no competing interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Health Solutions, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Yi Zhou

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

    H. Steven Colburn

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  1. Yi Zhou
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  2. H. Steven Colburn
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Correspondence to Yi Zhou .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Biology Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA

    Darlene R. Ketten

  2. Department of Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience, Washington State University, Vancouver, WA, USA

    Allison B. Coffin

  3. Department of Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Richard R. Fay

  4. Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Arthur N. Popper

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Zhou, Y., Colburn, H.S. (2024). Central Auditory Processing in the Mammalian System. In: Ketten, D.R., Coffin, A.B., Fay, R.R., Popper, A.N. (eds) A History of Discoveries on Hearing. Springer Handbook of Auditory Research, vol 77. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41320-9_9

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