Acoustic nerve

The vestibulocochlear nerve is the eighth of twelve cranial nerves and also known as the auditory nerve or acoustic nerve. It is the nerve along which the sensory cells (the hair cells) of the inner ear transmit information to the brain. It consists of the cochlear nerve, carrying information about hearing, and the vestibular nerve, carrying information about balance. It emerges from the medulla oblongata and enters the internal acoustic meatus in the temporal bone, along with the facial nerve.

How hearing information is coded on the nerve has long been a matter of scientific debate between two competing theories, a place theory and a rate theory.