Elsevier

NeuroImage

Volume 22, Issue 1, May 2004, Pages 401-408
NeuroImage

Assessing the auditory dual-pathway model in humans

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.01.014Get rights and content

Abstract

Evidence from anatomical and neurophysiological studies in nonhuman primates suggests a dual-pathway model of auditory processing wherein sound identity and sound location information are segregated along ventral and dorsal streams, respectively. The present meta-analysis reviewed evidence from auditory functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) studies to determine the reliability of this model in humans. Activation coordinates from 11 “spatial” studies (i.e., listeners made localization judgements on sounds that could occur at two or more perceptually different positions) and 27 “nonspatial” studies (i.e., listeners completed nonspatial tasks involving sounds presented from the same location) were entered into the analysis. All but one of the spatial studies reported activation within the inferior parietal lobule as opposed to only 41% of the nonspatial studies. In addition, 55% of spatial studies reported activity around the superior frontal sulcus as opposed to only 7% of the nonspatial studies. In comparison, inferior frontal activity (Brodmann's areas 45 and 47) was reported in only 9% of the spatial studies, but in 56% of the nonspatial studies. Finally, almost all temporal lobe activity observed during spatial tasks was confined to posterior areas, whereas nonspatial activity was distributed throughout the temporal lobe. These results support an auditory dual-pathway model in humans in which nonspatial sound information (e.g., sound identity) is processed primarily along the ventral stream whereas sound location is processed along the dorsal stream and areas posterior to primary auditory cortex.

Section snippets

Materials and methods

We searched peer-reviewed articles for auditory studies that incorporated either PET or fMRI recordings. With the exception of one spatial study on congenitally blind adults (Weeks et al., 2000), only studies that used normal, healthy adults and reported coordinates in Talairach space (Talairach and Tournoux, 1988) were included in the meta-analysis. In an attempt to reduce the influence of publication biases where spatial and nonspatial hypotheses motivate the research, only studies that

Results and discussion

Table 1 and Fig. 1 summarize the data used in the meta-analysis. Fig. 2 summarizes the findings.

General discussion

The results of this meta-analysis are consistent with a domain-specific model of auditory organization in humans. In keeping with the animal auditory dual-pathway model (Rauschecker and Tian, 2000), it was found that human IPL activity is ubiquitous among tasks that require listeners to compare or evaluate the location of a sound source. Furthermore, spatially processing sounds was also associated with activity around the SFS, as well as in posterior, but not anterior, areas of the temporal

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. The authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript.

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