title: [Neural Representation of Sound Texture in the Auditory Cortex].
abstract: Natural sounds have a variety of sound spectra, which produce the so-called textures of sounds. These sound textures are extracted and perceived through interactions of the auditory, emotional, and cognitive systems in our brain. Recent studies have investigated how our brain handles musical sound textures, such as consonant and dissonant chords, or major and minor scales. Accumulating evidence indicates that the mammal auditory system has adapted to extract the harmonic structure of sounds and that this adaptation plays crucial roles in the perception of the consonance of two-tone chords. In addintion, functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have shown that major and minor scales activate not only the auditory system but also the emotional and cognitive systems. Our study revealed that phase synchrony within the auditory cortex of rodents represents the tonality of three-tone chords in a band-specific manner, and these findings support the hypothesis that the auditory system interact with the emotional and/or cognitive systems. Thus, the neural bases for the perception of sound textures are widely distributed within our brain, and these evolution of these neural systems significantly affects the establishment of musical grammar.
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo.
authors.forename: Tomoyo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shiramatsu Isoguchi
authors.forename: Hirokazu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Takahashi
mesh_terms: D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D004644:Emotions; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D009146:Music; D013016:Sound