Abstract
The medial superior olive (MSO) is a prominent auditory brainstem structure in mammals that permits studying the evolution of a functionally distinct neural circuit in the context of well-defined and behaviorally relevant acoustic parameters. MSO studies exemplify neuronal adaptations for temporal processing of sounds via gradual modifications related behavioral strategies and species-specific habitats. While the MSO might still be “ancient” in some recent mammals whose hearing periphery changed little since the invention of tympanic ears, profound changes of the auditory system can be observed, for instance in bats. As new auditory cues became vital to various mammalian species, the MSO became adjusted according to evolutionary pressure, serving different functions like pattern recognition and sound localization. Whereas the general principles, for example, of temporal processing in MSO neurons, have been more or less preserved, the main changes relate to variations of input patterns.
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