Spatial hearing and temporal processing ability of the Mongolian gerbil ( ) measured using prepulse inhibition of acoustic startle.

The Mongolian gerbil is a common model organism for studying the neural and behavioral mechanisms of binaural and spatial hearing, largely because of its ability to hear lower frequencies than other rodents and thus utilize both interaural time and level difference cues for sound localization. Prior spatial hearing studies in gerbils have relied on operant conditioning paradigms, requiring large amounts of time-consuming training and testing on multiple different tasks needed to make a comprehensive assessment of spatial hearing ability (including temporal processing, spatial acuity and spatial unmasking). This limits the ability of researchers to thoroughly assess behavioral performance in individual animals.

Neural and behavioral binaural hearing impairment and its recovery following moderate noise exposure.

Noise-induced cochlear synaptopathy has been studied for over 25 years with no known diagnosis for this disorder in humans. This type of "hidden hearing loss" induces a loss of synapses in the inner ear but no change in audiometric thresholds. Recent studies have shown that by two months post synaptopathy-inducing noise exposure, synapses in some animal species can regenerate.