For decades, the corticofugal descending projections have been anatomically well
described but their functional role remains a puzzling question. In this review, we will first …

The efferent auditory nervous system may be a potent force in shaping how the brain
responds to behaviorally significant sounds. Previous human experiments using the …

Experimental evidence in animals demonstrates cortical neurons innervate subcortex
bilaterally to tune brainstem auditory coding. Yet, the role of the descending (corticofugal) …

The ability to navigate “cocktail party” situations by focusing on sounds of interest over
irrelevant, background sounds is often considered in terms of cortical mechanisms …

Background noise strongly penalizes auditory perception of speech in humans or
vocalizations in animals. Despite this, auditory neurons are still able to detect …

Linking sensory input and its consequences is a fundamental brain operation. Accordingly,
neural activity of neo-cortical and limbic systems often reflects dynamic combinations of …

Temporal envelope fluctuations are abundant in nature and are critical for perception of
complex sounds. While psychophysical sinusoidal amplitude modulation (SAM) processing …

Mismatch negativity (MMN) is a candidate biomarker for neuropsychiatric disease.
Understanding the extent to which it reflects cognitive deviance-detection or purely sensory …

Dichotic pitches such as the Huggins pitch (HP) and the binaural edge pitch (BEP) are
perceptual illusions whereby binaural noise that exhibits abrupt changes in interaural phase …

Layer 5 pyramidal neurons of sensory cortices project “corticofugal” axons to myriad sub-
cortical targets, thereby broadcasting high-level signals important for perception and …