The auditory system enables us to hear and understand sounds within the environment. It consists of peripheral structures that transform the physical sound waves into electric signals followed by central brain regions that encode sound localization and contextual information to correctly identify and make sense of sound. In every step of the auditory system, deciphering the synaptic and cellular mechanisms involved is essential to understanding how sound information is processed and how these mechanisms are impaired in pathological conditions. Several parallel and serial processing pathways, each with its own cellular specialization, operate in concert to create an abstraction of the physical acoustic reality. Early studies with their limited experimental and analytical tools available have already described a vast diversity of cell types, processing pathways, and synaptic and cellular mechanisms with both morphological and physiological specializations to advance our understanding of how the brain processes sound. However, a comprehensive understanding of the auditory system in health and disease can only be achieved by a concentrated effort involving novel methods applied at multiple processing stages and investigated from various viewpoints.

The purpose of this Research Topic is to compile primary research papers and reviews on the current advancement in deciphering the cellular and molecular specializations essential for a proper understanding of sound. Our goal is to provide neuroscientists with an overview of the current understanding of the cellular and synaptic mechanisms in the auditory system at any stage from the inner ear to the auditory cortex. Additionally, it will provide the opportunity to address currently open questions and link research from various viewpoints by accommodating the work of multiple research groups working at different processing stages of the auditory system.

We welcome the submission of Original Research, Review, Methods, and Perspective articles on cellular and synaptic mechanisms at any level of the auditory pathway using a variety of methodological approaches such as patch-clamp electrophysiology, in vivo electrophysiology, neuroanatomy, computational modeling, and behavior.

Of particular interest are articles of the following sub-topics:

- Cellular and synaptic mechanisms in the auditory system

- Cellular specializations that enable the processing of acoustic information

- Homeostatic regulation of cellular and synaptic properties to compensate for over- or under-stimulation of the auditory system

- Dysfunction of cellular and synaptic mechanisms in disease and their impact on auditory processing

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Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience

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