Psych Central  Training improves sound localization in ferrets
Caption: Measuring the accuracy with which ferrets can localize
sound. (Photo: King et al.) Click here for a high resolution
photograph.  Upon hearing the blare of a siren, you would
quickly home in on the source and direction of the sound and
take the necessary action, or precaution, such as pulling your
car over or foregoing crossing the street until the ambulance
has cleared. Mammals rely on sound localization skills to
communicate, escape threats, and forage, among many other tasks.
All through development the adult brain retains the capacity to
rewire the networks that underlie these skills but it's not
clear which tasks benefit from plasticity or how the brain
engenders this flexibility. In a study published in the open
access journal PLoS Biology, Oliver Kacelnik, Andrew King, and
colleagues showed by manipulating the hearing of adult ferrets
that ferrets with obstructed hearing can quickly adapt to
altered auditory cues when trained to do