article_snippet.sent: The research was conducted by scientists from the University of Connecticut and published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
article_snippet.sent: To explore the idea, The researchers used tiny microphones to record the sounds inside rabbits' ears as The researchers played sounds at different locations.
article_snippet.sent: The researchers used these recordings to simulate modulated or unmodulated noise coming from different distances from the rabbit.
article_snippet.sent: Then The researchers played the simulated sounds back to the rabbit, and measured the responses of neurons in the rabbit's inferior colliculus (IC), a region of the midbrain known to be important for sound perception.
article_snippet.sent: When the rabbit heard the simulated sounds, certain types of IC neurons fired more when the sound was closer - when there was a bigger difference between the sound's maximum and minimum volume.
article_snippet.sent: Dr Pavel Zahorik, a researcher at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, got the same results with human volunteers.