This was actually the focus of my graduate studies, and am happy to talk about my (perhaps now slightly outdated, but not as outdated as this paper) research he

This was actually the focus of my graduate studies, and am happy to talk about my (perhaps now slightly outdated, but not as outdated as this paper) research here, which was centered around centrally-mediated attenuation of incoming signals from the periphery (specifically the cochlea) using otoacoustic emissions (echoes from the inner ear) and auditory brainstem responses. This review is a good treatment of the peripheral auditory system, but excludes two important things: 1) the central auditory system. This would've expanded the review to near textbook levels, so it's understandable why it wasn't included, but a lot of really interesting things happen in the brainstem, like sound localization. Auditory brainstem responses are really cool because the different waves you can detect are directly correlated with different structures (like the olivary complex) in the brainstem. Above the thalamus, sound perception is less well-characterized. 2) the descending auditory nerve fibers. This is likely because most of the research here took place after it was published, so it's understandable, but it was my area of research so I have to talk about it. We have neurons that come from the brain and send signals back down to the cochlea, specifically the outer hair cells which moderate the cochlear amplifier, and while it's still not entirely clear what messages they convey, my research was around the interaction of directed attention and these descending nerve fibers. One caveat is that I've been out of the field for nearly a decade and have barely kept up with the research, but I don't think any major breakthroughs or change in the debate about the descending fibers has happened in the time since then.