Fluctuations in the amplitude of a sound play an important role in our perception of pitch and acoustic space, but their neural analysis has not been fully elucidated. The ventral nucleus of the lateral lemniscus (VNLL) has been implicated in the processing of such temporal features of a sound. This study examines responses of neurons in the VNLL of unanesthetized rabbits to sinusoidally amplitude-modulated tones, a type of stimulus which has often been used to investigate encoding of temporal information. Modulation transfer functions of responses were calculated in two ways: based on discharge rates (rMTFs), and on synchronization to the envelope (tMTFs). Among the variety of rMTFs, two types were readily identifiable: flat and bandpass. The responses of neurons exhibiting these types of rMTF differed in several ways. Neurons with flat rMTFs typically had moderate rates of spontaneous activity, sustained responses to short tone bursts, and lowpass or bandpass tMTFs. Neurons with bandpass rMTFs typically had low spontaneous activity, onset responses to short tone bursts, and flat tMTFs. The vast majority synchronized strongly to the modulation envelope. The best modulation frequencies of neurons with bandpass rMTFs extended from 14 - 283 Hz. The presence of neurons with bandpass rMTFs in the VNLL suggests that this nucleus plays a role in converting the temporal code for modulation frequency used in lower structures into a rate-based code for use higher in the auditory pathway. The substantial number of neurons with more complex modulation transfer functions indicates that the VNLL has other functions.