Faculty Collaboration Database

Distinct cortical pathways for processing tool versus animal sounds. J Neurosci 2005 May 25;25(21):5148-58

Date

05/27/2005

Pubmed ID

15917455

Pubmed Central ID

PMC6724809

DOI

10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0419-05.2005

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-19444373128 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   240 Citations

Abstract

Human listeners can effortlessly categorize a wide range of environmental sounds. Whereas categorizing visual object classes (e.g., faces, tools, houses, etc.) preferentially activates different regions of visually sensitive cortex, it is not known whether the auditory system exhibits a similar organization for different types or categories of complex sounds outside of human speech. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we show that hearing and correctly or incorrectly categorizing animal vocalizations (as opposed to hand-manipulated tool sounds) preferentially activated middle portions of the left and right superior temporal gyri (mSTG). On average, the vocalization sounds had much greater harmonic and phase-coupling content (acoustically similar to human speech sounds), which may represent some of the signal attributes that preferentially activate the mSTG regions. In contrast, correctly categorized tool sounds (and even animal sounds that were miscategorized as being tool-related sounds) preferentially activated a widespread, predominantly left hemisphere cortical "mirror network." This network directly overlapped substantial portions of motor-related cortices that were independently activated when participants pantomimed tool manipulations with their right (dominant) hand. These data suggest that the recognition processing for some sounds involves a causal reasoning mechanism (a high-level auditory "how" pathway), automatically evoked when attending to hand-manipulated tool sounds, that effectively associates the dynamic motor actions likely to have produced the sound(s).

Author List

Lewis JW, Brefczynski JA, Phinney RE, Janik JJ, DeYoe EA

Author

Edgar A. DeYoe PhD Adjunct Professor in the Radiology department at Medical College of Wisconsin

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

Acoustic Stimulation
Adult
Animals
Auditory Cortex
Auditory Pathways
Brain Mapping
Female
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Middle Aged
Oxygen
Sound Localization
Spectrum Analysis