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Human brain regions involved in recognizing environmental sounds.

James W Lewis1, Frederic L Wightman, Julie A Brefczynski

  • 1Department of Radiology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53226, USA. jlewis@hsc.wvu.edu

Cerebral Cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
|May 29, 2004
PubMed
Summary

This study reveals brain regions involved in recognizing environmental sounds. The posterior middle temporal gyri (pMTG) are key for processing sound-source information and object-motion knowledge.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Auditory Perception
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

  • Environmental sound recognition is crucial for understanding the world.
  • The brain mechanisms underlying this ability, particularly the auditory 'what' pathway, are not fully understood.
  • Previous research has linked semantic processing to sound recognition but lacked specific anatomical detail.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To identify specific brain regions involved in recognizing environmental sounds.
  • To investigate the role of the auditory 'what' pathway in processing complex sounds.
  • To explore the relationship between sound recognition and semantic/action knowledge.

Main Methods:

  • Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to collect brain activity data.

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  • Participants listened to a variety of recognizable environmental sounds (tools, animals, liquids, etc.).
  • Activity evoked by recognizable sounds was compared to that evoked by temporally reversed, unrecognizable control sounds.

    • Main Results:

    • Recognizable environmental sounds activated a distributed network, predominantly in the left hemisphere.
    • Strong bilateral activity was observed in the posterior middle temporal gyri (pMTG).
    • These pMTG regions showed overlap with areas involved in visual processing of motion and object recognition.

    Conclusions:

    • The bilateral pMTG likely processes multimodal information about objects and their associated motion.
    • This processing may involve 'action' knowledge, aiding in the recognition of environmental sound sources.
    • The findings offer a neural explanation for auditory agnosia related to environmental sounds.