Auditory cortex

Question 1

Discriminating the identity of multiple sounds heard simultaneously is based on what?

Answer 1

Pattern recognition - neuroscience is far from recognizing this

Question 2

Where does pattern recognition occur?

Answer 2

Primary and association auditory cortex

Question 3

How are neurons in auditory cortex arranged?

Answer 3

In columns, much like in the visual cortex

Question 4

Neurons in the auditory cortex respond to different properties of sound stimulus:

Answer 4

• onset or cessation of sound, or both
• changes in pitch or intensity, sometimes only in one direction
• combinations of frequencies (i.e. complex stimuli)
• specific frequencies only in certain contexts – i.e. if it occurs at the beginning or end of a sequence

Question 5

Does damage to the auditory cortex produce deafness?

Answer 5

No

Question 6

Case studies of damage to auditory cortex

Answer 6

a. Perception of sound location, identity and movement dissociated in 3 pts.
b. Because of large lesions, was not possible to determine the lesion location associated with each

Question 7

fMRI study of damage to auditory cortex

Answer 7

a. determining sound location activated dorsal auditory association cortex
b. Determining sound identity activated ventral auditory association area

Question 8

L lesions in auditory cortex result in

Answer 8

Impaired speech comprehension

Question 9

R lesions in auditory cortex result in

Answer 9

impaired prosody comprehension (i.e. emotional aspects of speech e.g. intonation) and other non-speech sounds