Segregated Processing of Auditory Motion and Auditory Location: An ERP Mapping Study

• Published in: NeuroImage (Orlando, Fla.) Vol. 16; no. 1; pp. 76 - 88
• Main Authors: Ducommun, Christine Y., Murray, Micah M., Thut, Gregor, Bellmann, Anne, Viaud-Delmon, Isabelle, Clarke, Stéphanie, Michel, Christoph M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.05.2002
• Subjects: Acoustic Stimulation; Adult; Auditory Perception - physiology; Brain Mapping - methods; Cluster Analysis; Electroencephalography; Evoked Potentials, Auditory - physiology; Female; Functional Laterality - physiology; Humans; Male; Motion Perception - physiology; Nerve Net - physiology; Sound Localization - physiology
• ISSN: 1053-8119; 1095-9572
• DOI: 10.1006/nimg.2002.1062

Recentstudies have revealed a distinct cortical network activated during the analysis of sounds' spatial properties. Whether common brain regions in this auditory where pathway are involved in both auditory motion and location processing is unresolved. We investigated this question with multichannel auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) in 11 subjects. Stimuli were binaural 500-ms white noise bursts. Interaural time differences (ITD) created the sensation of moving or stationary sounds within each auditory hemifield, and subjects discriminated either their position or direction of motion in a blocked design. Scalp potential distributions (AEP maps) differentiated electric field configurations across stimulus classes. The initial ∼250-ms poststimulus yielded common topographies for both stimulus classes and hemifields. After ∼250-ms, moving and stationary sounds engaged distinct cortical networks at two time periods, again with no differences observed between hemifields. The first (∼250- to 350-ms poststimulus onset) was during stimulus presentation, and the second (∼550- to 900-ms poststimulus onset) occurred after stimulus offset. Distributed linear inverse solutions of the maps over the 250- to 350-ms time period revealed not only bilateral inferior frontal activation for both types of auditory spatial processing, but also strong right inferior parietal activation in the case of auditory motion discrimination. During the later 550-to 900-ms time period, right inferior parietal and bilateral inferior frontal activity was again observed for moving sounds, whereas strong bilateral superior frontal activity was seen in the case of stationary sounds. Collectively, the evidence supports the existence of partly segregated networks within the auditory where pathway for auditory location and auditory motion processing.