Cortical mechanisms of auditory pattern recognition in non-human primates

Functional Organization of Primate Auditory Cortex

(Brosch, Selezneva, Oshurkova, Budinger)

Due to their phylogenetic proximity macaque monkeys become increasingly important for the understanding of the functional processes in human auditory cortex. Therefore the functional organization of monkey auditory cortex has to be studied in more detail. We investigate the physiological organization by multielectrode recordings and multidimensional receptive field mappings. In cooperation with Eike Budinger we relate the physiological organization to the cytoarchitecture and the interneuronal connectivity patterns of auditory cortex.

Fig.: Tonotopic organization of auditory cortical fields of longtail macaques. The upper panel shows the distribution of best frequencies (BF; in kHz) in the left primary auditory cortex. The BF at each recording site is represented by a polyeder, the gray value of which codes its BF. The lower panel shows 2-deoxyglucose labeling of auditory cortex fields of an awake macaque. The animal was stimulated with alternating tones (1 and 2 kHz). Note the two sets of stripes of increased 2-deoxyglucose uptake in the auditory core fields AI and R.

Key publications

Brosch, M. and Scheich, H. (2003) Neural Representation of Sound Patterns in the
Auditory Cortex of Monkeys. In: Primate Audition: Ethology and Neurobiology, edited by
Ghazanfar, A. A., CRC Press, Boca Ration, Fl, pp 159-175.