Faculty Collaboration Database

Cortical activation response to acoustic echo planar scanner noise. J Comput Assist Tomogr 1998;22(1):111-9

Date

02/04/1998

Pubmed ID

9448773

DOI

10.1097/00004728-199801000-00021

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-0031911303 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   46 Citations

Abstract

PURPOSE: Our goal was to determine the distribution of auditory and language cortex activation in response to acoustic echo planar scanner noise with functional MRI (fMRI).

METHOD: Acoustic scanner noise and spoken text, reproduced on high output cassette tape, were separately delivered at equivalent intensities to six normal hearing adult volunteers through earphones during fMRI data acquisition. In nine other subjects, taped scanner noise was delivered in five successive iterations of the task to assess the consistency of cortical activation to the noise stimulus. Gyri of the auditory and language system were divided into 10 different subregions for analysis of cortical activation. The number of activated pixels and proportion of volunteers activating each cortical subregion were determined using a cross-correlation analysis.

RESULTS: Cortical activation to taped acoustic scanner noise was present within the transverse temporal gyrus (primary auditory cortex) in all subjects, but activation was highly variable between subjects in auditory association and language relevant cortex. Auditory association cortex activation was seen in the planum polari, planum temporali, and middle temporal gyrus/superior temporal sulcus regions in one-half to two-thirds of the volunteers. There was no significant difference in the distribution of cortical activation within individual subjects across five successive iterations of the scanner noise task. Listening to spoken text consistently activated primary and association auditory cortex bilaterally as well as language relevant cortex in some cases. The mean number of activated pixels was significantly greater for text listening than acoustic scanner noise in auditory association and language relevant cortical subregions (p < 0.01), although the distribution of activity was similar between the two tasks.

CONCLUSION: This preliminary investigation suggests that the complex sounds produced by the echo planar pulse sequence can activate relatively large regions of auditory and language cortex bilaterally, with the extent of activation outside the primary auditory cortex being variable between subjects. However, the distribution of activation within individual subjects was relatively constant across several iterations of the scanner noise stimulus.

Author List

Ulmer JL, Biswal BB, Yetkin FZ, Mark LP, Mathews VP, Prost RW, Estkowski LD, McAuliffe TL, Haughton VM, Daniels DL

Authors

Vincent Mathews MD Chair, Professor in the Radiology department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Timothy L. McAuliffe PhD Professor in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine department at Medical College of Wisconsin

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Adult
Auditory Cortex
Cerebral Cortex
Echo-Planar Imaging
Female
Frontal Lobe
Humans
Male
Noise
Parietal Lobe
Reference Values
Speech
Temporal Lobe