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Structure and function of auditory cortex: music and speech.

We examine the evidence that speech and musical sounds exploit different acoustic cues: speech is highly dependent on rapidly changing broadband sounds, whereas tonal patterns tend to be slower, although small and precise changes in frequency are important. We argue that the auditory cortices in the two hemispheres are relatively specialized, such that temporal resolution is better in left auditory cortical areas and spectral resolution is better in right auditory cortical areas. We propose that cortical asymmetries might have developed as a general solution to the need to optimize processing of the acoustic environment in both temporal and frequency domains.

Journal Article↗

Perception of matching and conflicting audiovisual speech in dyslexic and fluent readers: an fMRI study at 3 T.

We presented phonetically matching and conflicting audiovisual vowels to 10 dyslexic and 10 fluent-reading young adults during "clustered volume acquisition" functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 3 T. We further assessed co-variation between the dyslexic readers' phonological processing abilities, as indexed by neuropsychological test scores, and BOLD signal change within the visual cortex, auditory cortex, and Broca's area. Both dyslexic and fluent readers showed increased activation during observation of phonetically conflicting compared to matching vowels within the classical motor speech regions (Broca's area and the left premotor cortex), this activation difference being more extensive and bilateral in the dyslexic group. The between-group activation difference in conflicting > matching contrast reached significance in the motor speech regions and in the left inferior parietal lobule, with dyslexic readers exhibiting stronger activation than fluent readers. The dyslexic readers' BOLD signal change co-varied with their phonological processing abilities within the visual cortex and Broca's area, and to a lesser extent within the auditory cortex. We suggest these findings as reflecting dyslexic readers' greater use of motor-articulatory and visual strategies during phonetic processing of audiovisual speech, possibly to compensate for their difficulties in auditory speech perception.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

Auditory association cortex lesions impair auditory short-term memory in monkeys.

Monkeys that were trained to perform auditory and visual short-term memory tasks (delayed matching-to-sample) received lesions of the auditory association cortex in the superior temporal gyrus. Although visual memory was completely unaffected by the lesions, auditory memory was severely impaired. Despite this impairment, all monkeys could discriminate sounds closer in frequency than those used in the auditory memory task. This result suggests that the superior temporal cortex plays a role in auditory processing and retention similar to the role the inferior temporal cortex plays in visual processing and retention.

Animals↗

Characteristics of reliable tone-evoked oscillations in the rat thalamo-cortical auditory system.

Tone-evoked oscillations were studied from simultaneous recordings collected in the auditory cortex, auditory thalamus and auditory sector of the reticular nucleus in urethane anesthetized rats. These oscillations were precisely time-locked to tone onset and were easily observed on peristimulus time histograms (PSTHs). Visual inspection of PSTHs and rasters led us to distinguish between 'reliable' oscillations (which exhibited oscillatory patterns in more than 50% of the trials) and 'labile' oscillations (which exhibited oscillations in less than 50% of the trials). Systematic quantification of oscillations based on several indices derived from power spectra confirmed this distinction. 'Reliable' stimulus-locked oscillations were observed in 51/184 (28%) of the recordings from auditory cortex, 9/55 (17%) of the recordings from auditory thalamus and 11/26 (42%) of the recordings from the auditory sector of the reticular nucleus. The frequency range of these oscillations was the same in the three structures (5-14 Hz). Within the same animal, when one electrode exhibited oscillations, there was a high probability of detecting similar oscillations from electrodes located in the same structure, but not from electrodes located in the other structures. These oscillations were observed for pure tone frequency (or for clicks) whatever the tone duration (1 s, 100 ms, 10 ms). The inter-tone interval (ITI) was found to be the critical factor controlling the occurrence of these oscillations: they were present for ITIs of 2 s or longer, but were absent for ITIs of 1 s or less. In contrast, the occurrence of the oscillations was a function neither of the strength of the 'on' evoked response nor of the animal's temperature. However, lowering the animal's temperature from 37-38 degrees C to 35-36 degrees C systematically led to a decrease in the frequency and an increase in the duration of the tone-evoked oscillations. These results suggest that, even in well defined conditions (temperature, EEG, ITI, level of anesthesia), the oscillations triggered by presentation of the same stimulus can be stable or unstable. This temporal instability of stimulus-evoked oscillations has to be taken into account before stating percentages of oscillations in a given brain structure. They also suggest that some general factors such as the animals temperature or the inter-stimulus interval can considerably affect their characteristics and/or their occurrence.

Acoustic Stimulation↗