title: Intracerebral evidence of rhythm transform in the human auditory cortex.
abstract: Musical entrainment is shared by all human cultures and the perception of a periodic beat is a cornerstone of this entrainment behavior. Here, we investigated whether beat perception might have its roots in the earliest stages of auditory cortical processing. Local field potentials were recorded from 8 patients implanted with depth-electrodes in Heschl's gyrus and the planum temporale (55 recording sites in total), usually considered as human primary and secondary auditory cortices. Using a frequency-tagging approach, we show that both low-frequency (<30 Hz) and high-frequency (>30 Hz) neural activities in these structures faithfully track auditory rhythms through frequency-locking to the rhythm envelope. A selective gain in amplitude of the response frequency-locked to the beat frequency was observed for the low-frequency activities but not for the high-frequency activities, and was sharper in the planum temporale, especially for the more challenging syncopated rhythm. Hence, this gain process is not systematic in all activities produced in these areas and depends on the complexity of the rhythmic input. Moreover, this gain was disrupted when the rhythm was presented at fast speed, revealing low-pass response properties which could account for the propensity to perceive a beat only within the musical tempo range. Together, these observations show that, even though part of these neural transforms of rhythms could already take place in subcortical auditory processes, the earliest auditory cortical processes shape the neural representation of rhythmic inputs in favor of the emergence of a periodic beat.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience (Ions), Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), 53, Avenue Mounier, UCL 53.75, 1200, Brussels, Belgium. sylvie.nozaradan@uclouvain.be.|The MARCS Institute, Western Sydney University, Sydney, NSW, 2214, Australia. sylvie.nozaradan@uclouvain.be.|International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (Brams), Montreal, H3C 3J7, Canada. sylvie.nozaradan@uclouvain.be.
authors.forename: Sylvie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nozaradan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience (Ions), Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), 53, Avenue Mounier, UCL 53.75, 1200, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: André
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mouraux
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience (Ions), Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), 53, Avenue Mounier, UCL 53.75, 1200, Brussels, Belgium.|Service de Neurologie, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nancy, 54035, Nancy, France.|CRAN UMR 7039 CNRS Université de Lorraine, 54035, Nancy, France.
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jonas
authors.affiliation: Neurosurgery Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nancy, 54035, Nancy, France.
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Colnat-Coulbois
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience (Ions), Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), 53, Avenue Mounier, UCL 53.75, 1200, Brussels, Belgium.|Service de Neurologie, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nancy, 54035, Nancy, France.|Psychological Sciences Research Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rossion
authors.affiliation: Service de Neurologie, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nancy, 54035, Nancy, France.|CRAN UMR 7039 CNRS Université de Lorraine, 54035, Nancy, France.
authors.forename: Louis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Maillard
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009146:Music; D010507:Periodicity; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Frequency-tagging; Human auditory perception; Human depth-electrode recording; Intracerebral EEG; Music cognition; Musical rhythm and beat processing