Encoding of natural sounds in human and monkey auditory cortex

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Encoding of natural sounds in human and monkey auditory cortex Marcelo Armendariz1, Julia Erb2, 3, Federico De Martino2, 3, Elia Formisano2, 3 and Wim Vanduffel1, 4, 5* 1 KU Leuven, Laboratory of Neuro- and Psychophysiology, Belgium 2 Maastricht University, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Netherlands 3 Maastricht University, Maastricht Brain Imaging Center, Netherlands 4 Massachusetts General Hospital, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, United States 5 Harvard Medical School, Department of Radiology, United States Cortical processing of natural sounds in primates entails the representation of different complex acoustic features. Whereas the topographical representation of frequency has been reasonably well-studied, the functional organization underlying temporal and spectral modulation of sounds remains less understood. A recent human imaging study (Santoro et al. 2014) revealed the existence of regional preferences for spectral modulation, temporal modulation and frequency, and suggested a combined representation of these three features in the auditory cortex. A comparable study in monkeys (Baumann et al. 2015) corroborated the idea of a topographical representation of amplitude modulation rate. To compare the topographical representations of natural sounds in humans and monkeys, we applied high-resolution (0.75 mm isotropic voxels) contrast agent-enhanced fMRI (Vanduffel et al., 2001) using implanted phased-array coils (Janssens et al., 2012) in awake macaque monkeys while listening to identical stimuli as in Santoro et al. (2014). Our fMRI results showed representations of spectral modulation, temporal modulation and frequency in a similar manner in monkeys and humans. A model combining spectro-temporal modulations and frequency most accurately predicted the measured fMRI response. In line with previous monkey studies (Petkov et al. 2006, Joly et al. 2014), the tonotopy maps showed alternating high-low frequency patterns extending caudo-rostrally along the superior temporal gyrus and lateral sulcus. We used these features along with myelin density maps to define the borders of at least 3 core regions A1, R and RT. Surprisingly, we found that macaques showed preference for faster temporal modulation rates, with a peak at approximately 60 Hz, remarkably different from humans' modulation rate preference between 3-4 Hz. Previous studies have suggested that this latter modulation rate could be related to the processing of syllables in speech (Luo and Poeppel, 2007). In conclusion, our data revealed a highly similar lay-out of early auditory cortex in humans and monkeys with respect to spectro-temporal modulation and frequency. Differences in the modulation rate suggest that tuning of the human auditory cortex to the syllabic rate is unique and might be result of evolution of speech and language. References Santoro R, Moerel M, De Martino F, Goebel R, Ugurbil K, Yacoub E, Formisano E (2014) Encoding of Natural Sounds at Multiple Spectral and Temporal Resolutions in the Human Auditory Cortex. PLoS Comput Biol 10(1): e1003412. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003412 Moerel M, De Martino F, Santoro R, Ugurbil K, Goebel R, Yacoub E, Formisano E (2013) Processing of natural sounds: characterization of multipeak spectral tuning in human auditory cortex. J Neurosci 33:11888–11898 Keywords: fMRI, encoding, Auditory Cortex, natural sounds, monkey brain, human brain, topographic maps, modulation Conference: Second Belgian Neuroinformatics Congress, Leuven, Belgium, 4 Dec - 4 Dec, 2015. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Methods and Modeling Citation: Armendariz M, Erb J, De Martino F, Formisano E and Vanduffel W (2015). Encoding of natural sounds in human and monkey auditory cortex. Front. Neuroinform. Conference Abstract: Second Belgian Neuroinformatics Congress. doi: 10.3389/conf.fninf.2015.19.00019 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 13 Nov 2015; Published Online: 17 Nov 2015. * Correspondence: Dr. Wim Vanduffel, KU Leuven, Laboratory of Neuro- and Psychophysiology, Leuven, Belgium, wim@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Marcelo Armendariz Julia Erb Federico De Martino Elia Formisano Wim Vanduffel Google Marcelo Armendariz Julia Erb Federico De Martino Elia Formisano Wim Vanduffel Google Scholar Marcelo Armendariz Julia Erb Federico De Martino Elia Formisano Wim Vanduffel PubMed Marcelo Armendariz Julia Erb Federico De Martino Elia Formisano Wim Vanduffel Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.