The orderly innervation by auditory nerve fibers gives the AVCN a tonotopic organization along the dorsoventral axis.

Fibers that carry information from the apex of the cochlea that are tuned to low frequencies contact neurons in the ventral part of the AVCN; those that carry information from the base of the cochlea that are tuned to high frequencies contact neurons in the dorsal part of the AVCN.

Named due to the branching, tree-like, nature of their dendritic fields, visible using Golgi's method, they receive large end bulbs of Held from auditory nerve fibers.

[1] Spherical bushy cells project ipsilaterally to the LSO, bilaterally to the medial superior olive (MSO) and LNTB, and contralaterally to the VNTB and VNLL.

The most important purpose of these projections seems to be to imbue the MSO and LSO with their interaural time and level sensitivities (respectively).