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Evidence for distinct human auditory cortex regions for sound location versus identity processing

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  • Jyrki Ahveninen

    (Harvard Medical School—Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital)

  • Samantha Huang

    (Harvard Medical School—Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital)

  • Aapo Nummenmaa

    (Harvard Medical School—Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital)

  • John W. Belliveau

    (Harvard Medical School—Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital
    Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology)

  • An-Yi Hung

    (Harvard Medical School—Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital)

  • Iiro P. Jääskeläinen

    (Aalto University School of Science, Espoo)

  • Josef P. Rauschecker

    (Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition, Georgetown University Medical Center)

  • Stephanie Rossi

    (Harvard Medical School—Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital)

  • Hannu Tiitinen

    (Aalto University School of Science, Espoo)

  • Tommi Raij

    (Harvard Medical School—Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital)

Abstract

Neurophysiological animal models suggest that anterior auditory cortex (AC) areas process sound identity information, whereas posterior ACs specialize in sound location processing. In humans, inconsistent neuroimaging results and insufficient causal evidence have challenged the existence of such parallel AC organization. Here we transiently inhibit bilateral anterior or posterior AC areas using MRI-guided paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) while subjects listen to Reference/Probe sound pairs and perform either sound location or identity discrimination tasks. The targeting of TMS pulses, delivered 55–145 ms after Probes, is confirmed with individual-level cortical electric-field estimates. Our data show that TMS to posterior AC regions delays reaction times (RT) significantly more during sound location than identity discrimination, whereas TMS to anterior AC regions delays RTs significantly more during sound identity than location discrimination. This double dissociation provides direct causal support for parallel processing of sound identity features in anterior AC and sound location in posterior AC.

Suggested Citation

  • Jyrki Ahveninen & Samantha Huang & Aapo Nummenmaa & John W. Belliveau & An-Yi Hung & Iiro P. Jääskeläinen & Josef P. Rauschecker & Stephanie Rossi & Hannu Tiitinen & Tommi Raij, 2013. "Evidence for distinct human auditory cortex regions for sound location versus identity processing," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 4(1), pages 1-8, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms3585
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3585
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