ABSTRACT
One advantage of using mammals such as the mouse to study the neural bases of human hearing and deafness is that the phylogenetic similarities of the central auditory systems of mammals far outweigh their evolutionary differences. For this reason, rodents, relative to other mammalian orders, have provided the most information about the functional anatomy of the auditory portions of the brain relevant to the human condition. Of all mammals, cats, mice, and rats are the most popular species for neuroscientific investigations of neural mechanisms for the coding of biologically relevant acoustic signals containing speech-like characteristics. In fact, more species of rodents have been utilized for investigations of the central auditory system than any other mammalian order. Mice, gerbils, rats, guinea pigs, and chinchillas are some of the most popular rodents to have been used thus far. It is for reasons like these that handbooks and this chapter in particular are quite useful to those interested in the general workings of the mammalian auditory system.
