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Auditory sustained field responses to periodic noise
Sumru Keceli1, Koji Inui, Hidehiko Okamoto
1Department of Integrative Physiology, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Nishigohnaka 38, Myodaiji, Okazaki City, 444-8585, Japan. sumru@nips.ac.jp
BMC Neuroscience
|January 7, 2012
Summary
The human auditory cortex processes periodic sounds across a wide range of repetition rates. Enhanced sustained field responses to periodic noises indicate sensitivity to temporal modulations crucial for speech perception.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Auditory Neuroscience
- Speech Processing
Background:
- Auditory sustained responses are linked to neural processing of speech sounds in the auditory cortex.
- Investigating low-frequency periodic sound processing is crucial for understanding speech perception.
- The relationship between sustained response amplitudes and auditory input repetition rates is not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effect of repetition rate on auditory cortical responses.
- To analyze auditory sustained fields evoked by periodic and aperiodic noises using magnetoencephalography.
Main Methods:
- Magnetoencephalography (MEG) was used to record auditory sustained fields.
- Stimuli included white noise and repeating frozen noise at various repetition rates (5, 10, 50, 200, 500 Hz).
Main Results:
- Sustained field amplitudes were significantly larger for all periodic stimuli compared to white noise.
- Auditory sustained field amplitudes exhibited a pattern of increase and decrease with repetition rate.
- Response amplitudes were significantly larger at 5 Hz compared to 500 Hz repetition rates.
Conclusions:
- Cortical sensitivity to periodic sounds is maintained across a broad range of repetition rates.
- The auditory cortex can resolve low-frequency temporal modulations in the speech envelope, in addition to processing fundamental voice frequencies.
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