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From: brp@dino.berkeley.edu (Bruce Raoul Parnas)
Newsgroups: bionet.neuroscience
Subject: Re: Auditory Impulse Travel and Distance
Message-ID: <1991Jun18.033141.11511@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 18 Jun 91 03:31:41 GMT
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In article <9106171949.AA20716@genbank.bio.net> 054340%UOTTAWA@ICNUCEVM.CNUCE.CNR.IT (Matthew Simpson) writes:
>Dear Friends,

>More simply put, do louder sounds travel further along
>auditory pathways than sounds which are more quiet?

Any sound which we perceive, whether loud or soft, must travel into the 
auditory cortex, hence all the way along the pathway.  The intensity of the
sound doesn't affect whether the signal is propagated.  If it is transduced
at the cochlea, it will be transmitted.  Some neurons are level dependent,
i.e. their discharge probability is a function of input intensity, but many
are not.  These will convey the signal (almost) independent of its intensity.


bruce
(brp@bandit.berkeley.edu)