Hierarchical organization of the human auditory cortex revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging.
The concept of hierarchical processing--that the sensory world is broken down into basic features later integrated into more complex stimulus preferences--originated from investigations of the visual cortex. Recent studies of the auditory cortex in nonhuman primates revealed a comparable architecture, in which core areas, receiving direct input from the thalamus, in turn, provide input to a surrounding belt. Here functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) shows that the human auditory cortex displays a similar hierarchical organization: pure tones (PTs) activate primarily the core, whereas belt areas prefer complex sounds, such as narrow-band noise bursts.
Wessinger
C M
CM
Georgetown Institute for Cognitive and Computational Sciences, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC 20007-2197, USA.
VanMeter
J
J
Tian
B
B
Van Lare
J
J
Pekar
J
J
Rauschecker
J P
JP
D000328:Adult; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male