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Related Concept Videos

Hearing

Hearing

When we hear a sound, our nervous system is detecting sound waves—pressure waves of mechanical energy traveling through a medium. The frequency of the wave is perceived as pitch, while the amplitude is perceived as loudness.

Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location

Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location

The human brain perceives pitch through two primary mechanisms reflected in place theory and frequency theory. Each mechanism describes how sound waves are interpreted as specific pitches by the brain, offering insights into the intricate processes of auditory perception.
Place theory, or place coding, suggests that different pitches are heard because various sound waves activate specific locations along the cochlea's basilar membrane. The brain determines the pitch of a sound by...

Auditory Pathway

Auditory Pathway

Auditory pathways constitute the complex neural circuits responsible for transmitting and interpreting auditory information from the peripheral auditory system to the brain. Sound waves are initially captured by the outer ear, funneled through the ear canal, and reach the tympanic membrane (eardrum). These vibrations are transmitted via the middle ear's ossicles to the inner ear's cochlea.
When viewed cross-sectionally, the cochlea reveals the scala vestibuli and scala tympani flanking...

The Cochlea

The Cochlea

The cochlea is a coiled structure in the inner ear that contains hair cells—the sensory receptors of the auditory system. Sound waves are transmitted to the cochlea by small bones attached to the eardrum called the ossicles, which vibrate the oval window that leads to the inner ear. This causes fluid in the chambers of the cochlea to move, vibrating the basilar membrane.

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

The cerebral cortex, the brain's outermost layer, is pivotal in processing complex cognitive tasks, emotions, and various sensory inputs and executing voluntary motor activities. This intricate structure is divided into three primary functional areas: the motor areas, sensory areas, and association areas.
Motor Areas
The motor areas located in the frontal lobe are central to controlling voluntary movements. This region is further subdivided into the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex....

Hair Cells

Hair Cells

Hair cells are the sensory receptors of the auditory system—they transduce mechanical sound waves into electrical energy that the nervous system can understand. Hair cells are located in the organ of Corti within the cochlea of the inner ear, between the basilar and tectorial membranes. The actual sensory receptors are called inner hair cells. The outer hair cells serve other functions, such as sound amplification in the cochlea, and are not discussed in detail here.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 2, 2025

Functional Imaging of Auditory Cortex in Adult Cats using High-field fMRI

Functional Imaging of Auditory Cortex in Adult Cats using High-field fMRI

Published on: February 19, 2014

Encoding of melody in the human auditory cortex.

Narayan Sankaran¹, Matthew K Leonard¹, Frederic Theunissen²

¹Department of Neurological Surgery, University of California, San Francisco, 675 Nelson Rising Lane, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA.

Science Advances

|February 16, 2024

Summary

The human brain uses distinct neural sites to process melody components like pitch and expectation. Some brain areas are specialized for music, while others handle both music and speech sound properties.

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Last Updated: Jul 2, 2025

Functional Imaging of Auditory Cortex in Adult Cats using High-field fMRI

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Published on: February 19, 2014

Combined Shuttle-Box Training with Electrophysiological Cortex Recording and Stimulation as a Tool to Study Perception and Learning

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Mapping the After-effects of Theta Burst Stimulation on the Human Auditory Cortex with Functional Imaging

Mapping the After-effects of Theta Burst Stimulation on the Human Auditory Cortex with Functional Imaging

Published on: September 12, 2012

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Music Perception
Auditory Cortex

Background:

Melody perception involves absolute pitch, pitch change, and note expectation.
The brain's neural representation of these melodic dimensions is not fully understood.
It remains unclear if music-specific brain regions are involved in melody processing.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how the human brain encodes distinct dimensions of melody.
To determine if neural representations for melody are specialized for music or shared with other auditory processing.
To map the spatial organization of melodic dimension encoding in the auditory cortex.

Main Methods:

Recorded high-density neurophysiological activity from the human auditory cortex.
Participants listened to Western musical phrases and spoken English.
Compared neural responses to music and speech to identify selective encoding.

Main Results:

Distinct cortical sites selectively encoded pitch, pitch-change, and expectation in melodies.
A spatial map for representing different melodic dimensions was identified.
Cortical sites selective for music encoded expectation, while pitch and pitch-change used shared neural codes with speech.

Conclusions:

Melody perception involves both music-specific and general-purpose neural representations.
The brain utilizes a spatially organized map for distinct melodic features.
Auditory cortex dynamically adapts neural codes for processing music and speech.