brain plasticity: process sound in alternate way Brain can be trained to process sound in alternate way, study shows. Scientists have found that the brains of rats can be trained to learn an alternate way of processing changes in the loudness of sound. The discovery, they say, has potential for the treatment of hearing loss, autism, and other sensory disabilities in humans. It also gives clues, they say, about the process of learning and the way we perceive the world. Over the centuries, philosophers and scientists have put together a picture of how our brains model the world through the mechanism of our senses. Physical stimuli such as light, sound, and touch are converted by our sensory organs -- eyes, ears, and skin -- into electrical signals, which are processed by neurons in different areas of the brain. As those neurons fire, we see, hear, and feel. When the light or sound changes in intensity, our neurons fire faster or slower in direct ratio to the change. That ratio varies depending on the sense involved, but is constant for each sense: the louder a sound, the faster the neurons in the auditory cortex fire.
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