system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Does the auditory nerves activate, when we hear the voice of our thoughts?

I was wondering whether the nerves that are firing when we process sound activated, when we "hear" sound in our mind. Same could be asked for visualizations.
gpt
Higher order auditory and visual regions of the brain can get activated, but not really the primary auditory/ optic nerves. Those sort of need to funnel in physical stimuli (sound/ light stimuli), so they're not active if nothing is coming in. But they're connected to other regions via synapses that are involved in making sense of those incoming sights/sounds. Those regions can become active if you're imagining, rather than physically receiving those signals.