Research on auditory peripheral and central nervous systems as information processing systems in auditory environments

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In the modem society, the auditory environment surrounding us is diverse and changing rapidly. Although, in our daily life, there is not only a target sound signal but also background noise, we can hear the signal effectively in a noisy environment. Biological auditory systems seem to be able to utilize such useless sound information with ingenuity to detect signals. In this study, from the view point of finding a constructive role of background noise to biological information processing, we aimed to elucidate neural codes and sound signal information processing of auditory peripheral and central nervous systems at the level of neurons and their local networks. In particular, using electrophysiological recording techniques and a computational modeling approach, we studied the mechanism how background noise could influence auditory information processing in the afferent pathway from the peripheral nervous system to the central of rats and mice. One of the main results we obtained is that the background noise in auditory systems can enhance the sensitivity of detecting weak noise and can help to achieve efficient information transmission in the auditory pathways. In addition, some experimental evidences suggested that constructive effects of such background noise could be easily modified by neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine and norepinephrine. On the basis of the results, in the next step, such phenomena should be examined at the level of global neural networks and cognition in human.