The headline is odd. There are populations of neurons in the auditory system—the medial superior olive—that receive input from both ears. Even in humans these MSO neurons are exquisitely sensitive to binaural differences. This is how the owl catches the mouse at night. In some species delays of 10-20 microseconds can be detected and encoded by MSO neurons even tracking up to frequencies well above 40 kHz. This is amazing when you realize that neurons cannot fire at a rate above 1 kHz. Phase locking and ensemble encoding is used.

For example, adult mice have small heads, and ear separation is merely 5-7 mm; yet this is sufficient to locate the position of an ultrasonic squeak generated by a mouse pup at 40 kHz. This is a computational feat that requires extreme temporal precision in binaural auditory processing across comparatively noisy wetware (transduction noise, phase locking error, synaptic release noise, conduction velocity smear, dendritic integration in MSO).

And doubly impressive given that the brain has no “given” time base or oscillator to define a compute cycle. We must all build and refine our own internal set of pseudo-clocks for sensory and motor systems, in order to define the cumulative temporal context in which we are embedded.

This is crucial for the mouse to quickly avoid the talons of the owl.

More on timing in brain: @robwilliamsiii (see pinned tweet).