The Macias Lab is part of the Virginia Tech School of Neuroscience. We use a wonderful model, the echolocating bat, to investigate the neural mechanisms in the cortex responsible for auditory-vocal integration. We employ a multi-disciplinary approach that includes bioacoustics, behavioral training, multi-electrode electrophysiology and computational modeling techniques to understand the functional role of the auditory and frontal cortices to process complex natural sounds as well as the motor mechanisms that elicit the production of vocalizations.