Hearing skills of barn owls may aid humans

EUGENE, Ore., Aug. 2 (UPI) -- The hearing precision that allows owls to find prey is aiding U.S. scientists in their quest to diagnose a variety of problems rooted in the human brain.

University of Oregon researchers discovered barn owls (Tyto alba) are better able to track changes in the location of a noise when the sound source moves horizontally than when it moves vertically.

"When we are looking at problems of spatial localization, or how to locate sound in a space, the barn owl provides a great system," said the study's lead author Avinash Bala. "The barn owl has a portion of the midbrain which serves as a map. Neuron activity can be traced in the map as sound moves. Looking at this map, you can decipher which sounds are being received more actively."

The new study also sheds light on how outside information is converted into electrical activity and transformed into behavior.

The researchers said their findings might help in diagnosing not only human hearing problems, but also various behavioral difficulties.

The research appears online in the journal PLoS One.