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Updated: Jan 23, 2026

Functional Imaging of Auditory Cortex in Adult Cats using High-field fMRI
Published on: February 19, 2014
Divergence in the functional organization of human and macaque auditory cortex revealed by fMRI responses to harmonic
Sam V Norman-Haignere1,2,3,4, Nancy Kanwisher5,6,7, Josh H McDermott5,6,7,8
1Zuckerman Institute for Mind, Brain and Behavior, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. sn2776@columbia.edu.
Abstract:
We report a difference between humans and macaque monkeys in the functional organization of cortical regions implicated in pitch perception. Humans but not macaques showed regions with a strong preference for harmonic sounds compared to noise, measured with both synthetic tones and macaque vocalizations. In contrast, frequency-selective tonotopic maps were similar between the two species. This species difference may be driven by the unique demands of speech and music perception in humans.
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