Dissociation of temporal and frontal components in the human auditory N1 wave: a scalp current density and dipole model analysis

Abstract

This study reports a combined scalp current density (SCD) and dipole model analysis of the N1 wave of the auditory event-related potentials evoked by 1 kHz tone bursts delivered every second. The SCD distributions revealed: (i) a sink and a source of current reversing in polarity at the inferotemporal level of each hemiscalp, compatible with neural generators in and around the supratemporal plane of the auditory cortex, as previously reported; and (ii) bilateral current sinks over frontal areas. Consistently, dynamic dipole model analysis showed that generators in and outside the auditory cortex are necessary to account for the observed current fields between 65 and 140 msec post stimulus. The frontal currents could originate from the motor cortex, the supplementary motor area and/or the cingulate gyrus. The dissociation of an exogenous, obligatory frontal component from the sensory-specific response in the auditory N1 suggests that parallel processes served by distinct neural systems are activated during acoustic stimulation. Implications for recent models of auditory processing are discussed.