Tonotopic organization of the human auditory cortex probed with frequency-modulated tones

Weisz, Nathan; Wienbruch, Christian; Hoffmeister, Sandra; Elbert, Thomas

doi:10.1016/j.heares.2004.01.012

Cited by 18 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 45 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…An auditory stimulus with continuously varying frequency serially stimulates neighboring cortical locations (40,41); therefore, a single frequency-tuned neuronal population would respond periodically to an FM stimulus, with increased firing coinciding with the time point at which the frequency trajectory intersects the characteristic frequency of that cortical location. From this perspective, it could be argued that on a very local spatial scale, an FM stimulus is not so different from a periodic tone sequence, in terms of recurrent onsets and offsets.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Frequency modulation entrains slow neural oscillations and optimizes human listening behavior

Henry

Obleser

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

393

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The human ability to continuously track dynamic environmental stimuli, in particular speech, is proposed to profit from "entrainment" of endogenous neural oscillations, which involves phase reorganization such that "optimal" phase comes into line with temporally expected critical events, resulting in improved processing. The current experiment goes beyond previous work in this domain by addressing two thus far unanswered questions. First, how general is neural entrainment to environmental rhythms: Can neural oscillations be entrained by temporal dynamics of ongoing rhythmic stimuli without abrupt onsets? Second, does neural entrainment optimize performance of the perceptual system: Does human auditory perception benefit from neural phase reorganization? In a human electroencephalography study, listeners detected short gaps distributed uniformly with respect to the phase angle of a 3-Hz frequency-modulated stimulus. Listeners' ability to detect gaps in the frequency-modulated sound was not uniformly distributed in time, but clustered in certain preferred phases of the modulation. Moreover, the optimal stimulus phase was individually determined by the neural delta oscillation entrained by the stimulus. Finally, delta phase predicted behavior better than stimulus phase or the event-related potential after the gap. This study demonstrates behavioral benefits of phase realignment in response to frequency-modulated auditory stimuli, overall suggesting that frequency fluctuations in natural environmental input provide a pacing signal for endogenous neural oscillations, thereby influencing perceptual processing.pre-stimulus phase | auditory processing | EEG | FM N eural oscillations are associated with rhythmic fluctuations in the excitation-inhibition cycle of local neuronal populations (1-3). That is, a single neuron is not equally likely to discharge in response to stimulation at all points in time. Instead, its likelihood of responding is influenced by local extracellular and membrane potentials that, in turn, are reflected in neural oscillations. Critically, these neural oscillations can be entrained by external rhythmic sensory stimulation (3, 4) or, less naturally, by rhythmic neural stimulation using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) or transcranial alternating current stimulation (TACS; refs. 5 and 6). As a result, neurons are more likely to fire at temporally expected points in time. Restated, the time of peak neural sensitivity predicts the point in time at which an upcoming stimulus will occur within a framework of continued temporal regularity. Such a rhythmic neural processing mode is adaptive given the abundance of behaviorally relevant environmental auditory stimuli that are inherently rhythmic in nature and, thus, could provide a pacing signal for neural oscillations across a range of frequency bands.Entrainment of low-frequency oscillations involves a reorganization of phase so that the optimal, in this case most excitable, phase comes into line with temporally expected critical events in the ong...

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Frequency modulation entrains slow neural oscillations and optimizes human listening behavior

Henry

Obleser

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

393

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Trying to determine the principles or even mechanisms underlying response enhancement to repeated presentation of identical FM stimuli (i.e with the same modulation direction) is difficult as even the representation of single FM tones has only been studied in very few investigations using electrophysiological or MEG techniques [30], [31]. This makes it hard to provide an substantial explanation that rests on previous empirical findings and goes beyond speculation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Repetition Enhancement for Frequency-Modulated but Not Unmodulated Sounds: A Human MEG Study

et al. 2010

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundDecoding of frequency-modulated (FM) sounds is essential for phoneme identification. This study investigates selectivity to FM direction in the human auditory system.Methodology/Principal FindingsMagnetoencephalography was recorded in 10 adults during a two-tone adaptation paradigm with a 200-ms interstimulus-interval. Stimuli were pairs of either same or different frequency modulation direction. To control that FM repetition effects cannot be accounted for by their on- and offset properties, we additionally assessed responses to pairs of unmodulated tones with either same or different frequency composition. For the FM sweeps, N1m event-related magnetic field components were found at 103 and 130 ms after onset of the first (S1) and second stimulus (S2), respectively. This was followed by a sustained component starting at about 200 ms after S2. The sustained response was significantly stronger for stimulation with the same compared to different FM direction. This effect was not observed for the non-modulated control stimuli.Conclusions/SignificanceLow-level processing of FM sounds was characterized by repetition enhancement to stimulus pairs with same versus different FM directions. This effect was FM-specific; it did not occur for unmodulated tones. The present findings may reflect specific interactions between frequency separation and temporal distance in the processing of consecutive FM sweeps.

show abstract

“…The N1m amplitude is known to depend on the frequency components of the test sound signal; higher frequency sounds have been shown to elicit smaller N1m responses 23 at shorter latencies 24 . Moreover, the neural generator of the auditory evoked response elicited by a low rate FM sweep demonstrated a tonotopic gradient in medial–lateral and anterior–posterior directions in the human auditory cortex 25 . It is crucial to use FM sweeps as test stimuli that are matched with respect to the spectral characteristics.…”

mentioning

confidence: 94%

Encoding of frequency-modulation (FM) rates in human auditory cortex

Okamoto

Kakigi

2015

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Frequency-modulated sounds play an important role in our daily social life. However, it currently remains unclear whether frequency modulation rates affect neural activity in the human auditory cortex. In the present study, using magnetoencephalography, we investigated the auditory evoked N1m and sustained field responses elicited by temporally repeated and superimposed frequency-modulated sweeps that were matched in the spectral domain, but differed in frequency modulation rates (1, 4, 16, and 64 octaves per sec). The results obtained demonstrated that the higher rate frequency-modulated sweeps elicited the smaller N1m and the larger sustained field responses. Frequency modulation rate had a significant impact on the human brain responses, thereby providing a key for disentangling a series of natural frequency-modulated sounds such as speech and music.

show abstract

Tonotopic organization of the human auditory cortex probed with frequency-modulated tones

Cited by 18 publications

References 45 publications

Frequency modulation entrains slow neural oscillations and optimizes human listening behavior

Frequency modulation entrains slow neural oscillations and optimizes human listening behavior

Repetition Enhancement for Frequency-Modulated but Not Unmodulated Sounds: A Human MEG Study

Encoding of frequency-modulation (FM) rates in human auditory cortex

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About