Abstract
fMRI studies increasingly examine functions and properties of non-primary areas of human auditory cortex. However there is currently no standardized localization procedure to reliably identify specific areas across individuals such as the standard ‘localizers’ available in the visual domain. Here we present an fMRI ‘voice localizer’ scan allowing rapid and reliable localization of the voice-sensitive ‘temporal voice areas’ (TVA) of human auditory cortex. We describe results obtained using this standardized localizer scan in a large cohort of normal adult subjects. Most participants (94%) showed bilateral patches of significantly greater response to vocal than non-vocal sounds along the superior temporal sulcus/gyrus (STS/STG). Individual activation patterns, although reproducible, showed high inter-individual variability in precise anatomical location. Cluster analysis of individual peaks from the large cohort highlighted three bilateral clusters of voice-sensitivity, or “voice patches” along posterior (TVAp), mid (TVAm) and anterior (TVAa) STS/STG, respectively. A series of extra-temporal areas including bilateral inferior prefrontal cortex and amygdalae showed small, but reliable voice-sensitivity as part of a large-scale cerebral voice network. Stimuli for the voice localizer scan and probabilistic maps in MNI space are available for download.
Highlights
An increasing number of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies confirm the existence in human auditory cortex of areas showing particular sensitivity to sounds of voice
The high statistical power associated with the large number of subjects in this group-level analysis highlighted a number of extra-temporal areas not usually observed on single-subject contrast images, or even smaller group sizes
We present and make available to the community a 10-min ‘voice localizer’ protocol for identification of voice-sensitive cortex in the human brain
Summary
An increasing number of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies confirm the existence in human auditory cortex of areas showing particular sensitivity to sounds of voice. These ‘temporal voice areas’ (TVAs) show greater response to voices, whether they carry speech or not, than to other categories of non-vocal sounds from the environment or to acoustical control stimuli such as scrambled voices and amplitude-modulated noise (Belin et al, 2000, 2002; Linden et al, 2011; Von Kriegstein and Giraud, 2004), and show a particular.
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