“…Although the lesions produced by acoustic trauma are in the cochlea, secondary effects in the central nervous system may be important in determining the perceptual consequences of trauma (reviewed by Syka, 2002). Central effects of cochlear damage or ablation include degeneration of axons and neurons (Born and Rubel, 1988;Morest et al, 1998;Redd et al, 2000;Muly et al, 2002), formation of new synaptic connections (Kim et al, 2004a;Muly et al, 2004), rewiring of central circuits (Nordeen et al, 1983;Rajan et al, 1993;Leake et al, 2000), and changes in synaptic strength to favor excitation over inhibition (Suneja et al, 1998a;Abbott et al, 1999;Milbrandt et al, 2000;Mossop et al, 2000;Oleskevich and Walmsley, 2002;Vale and Sanes, 2002;Kim et al, 2004a). Each of these could influence substantially the central representation of sound.…”