The ventral nucleus of the trapezoid body (VNTB) is a major inhibitory hub in the descending auditory system. It receives descending projections from the auditory cortex, the inferior colliculus, and the nuclei of the lateral lemniscus. In turn, the VNTB innervates the contralateral lateral superior olive, the cochlear nuclei (CN) on both sides, and the outer hair cells within the cochlea. Its GABAergic, glycinergic and cholinergic neurons propagate the signals from higher centers to the first stages of the auditory brainstem.We injected the bidirectional tracer biotinylated dextran amine (BDA) into the rat VNTB to analyze the morphology and distribution of the anterogradely labeled axons in the dorsal (DCN), posteroventral (PVCN) and anteroventral cochlear nucleus (AVCN) on both sides. Additionally, we injected BDA into the DCN, PVCN and AVCN to characterize the retrogradely labeled neurons within the VNTB on both sides.The VNTB sends an extremely dense projection to the superficial layers of the DCN, and sparse projections to the PVCN and AVCN. Surprisingly, our results revealed a previously unknown projection to the octopus cell area (OCA) of the PVCN.The VNTB neurons innervating the CN exhibit medium-sized multipolar cell bodies, with no clear dendritic orientation. Neurons projecting to the DCN and OCA are predominantly contralateral and located ventrally, whereas those projecting to the AVCN and PVCN are bilaterally distributed and tend to occupy a relatively more dorsal position.These findings suggest that the VNTB exerts a powerful influence on the CN, the first stage of the auditory pathway.