Auditory Cortex News and Research

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The auditory cortex is the region of the brain that is responsible for processing of auditory (sound) information. The primary auditory cortex is located in the temporal lobe. There are additional areas of the human cerebral cortex that are involved in processing sound, in the frontal and parietal lobes.

Scientists discover an earlier origin to human language pathway in the brain

Scientists have discovered an earlier origin to the human language pathway in the brain, pushing back its evolutionary origin by at least 20 million years.

20 Apr 2020

Novel PET/CT systems provide quantitative assessment of brain stem nuclei in patients with hearing loss

Novel, fully digital, high-resolution positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) imaging of small brain stem nuclei can provide clinicians with valuable information concerning the auditory pathway in patients with hearing impairment, according to a new study published in the March issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

25 Mar 2020

Researchers examine abnormal neuron activity in Rett syndrome

The brain undergoes dramatic change during the first years of life. Its circuits readily rewire as an infant and then child encounters new sights and sounds, taking in the world and learning to understand it. As the child matures and key developmental periods pass, the brain becomes less malleable--but certain experiences create opportunities for parts of the adult brain to rewire and learn again.

29 Jan 2020

Findings may lead to potential therapeutic strategies for rare neurodevelopmental disorder

9 Jan 2020

Brain activity synchronizes with sound waves through lip-reading

Brain activity synchronizes with sound waves, even without audible sound, through lip-reading, according to new research published in JNeurosci.

2 Jan 2020

Researchers reconstruct words from neural signals using brain-computer interface

A team of Brown University researchers has used a brain-computer interface to reconstruct English words from neural signals recorded in the brains of nonhuman primates.

14 Dec 2019

Sight deprivation alters neuronal networks, shifts mice's sensitivity to different frequencies

Scientists have known that depriving adult mice of vision can increase the sensitivity of individual neurons in the part of the brain devoted to hearing.

4 Dec 2019

White noise background improves hearing, study shows

Noise is not the same as noise - and even a quiet environment does not have the same effect as white noise.

12 Nov 2019

Musical pleasure linked to right combination of uncertainty and surprise

Why is it that people find songs such as James Taylor's "Country Roads," UB40's "Red, Red Wine," or The Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" so irresistibly enjoyable? In a study reported in the journal Current Biology on November 7, researchers analyze 80,000 chords in 745 classic U.S. Billboard pop songs--including those three--and find that musical pleasure comes from the right combination of uncertainty and surprise.

8 Nov 2019

Early sound exposure can help treat hypersensitivity to noise associated with FXS

A research team at the University of California, Riverside, has found exposure to sound -- not sound reduction -- during early development of mice engineered to have Fragile X Syndrome, or FXS, restores molecular, cellular, and functional properties in the auditory cortex, the area of the brain that processes sounds.

6 Nov 2019

UCLA team finds that the brain processes fear differently after traumatic brain injury

Post-traumatic stress disorder in U.S. military members frequently follows a concussion-like brain injury. Until now, it has been unclear why. A UCLA team of psychologists and neurologists reports that a traumatic brain injury causes changes in a brain region called the amygdala; and the brain processes fear differently after such an injury.

4 Nov 2019

Newly introduced BARseq technology can be used to expand the brain map

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor Anthony Zador has taken the next step in his quest to solve exactly how the brain is wired.

17 Oct 2019

The vulnerability to auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia may be established by infancy

Some people suffering from severe mental illness, particularly schizophrenia, hear "voices," known as auditory hallucinations.

3 Oct 2019

Neuroscientists analyze why the brain is disturbed by harsh sounds

Why do the harsh sounds emitted by alarms or human shrieks grab our attention? What is going on in the brain when it detects these frequencies?

20 Sep 2019

Brain imaging reveals mechanisms underlying auditory processing in nonverbal children with autism

Even though nonverbal or minimally verbal people who have autism spectrum disorder (ASD) make up between 25 and 30 percent of the total autistic population, almost no studies have been done focusing on this group and their particular needs.

18 Sep 2019

New MRI technique captures image of a brain thinking

An international team of researchers with partial support from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering developed a new MRI technique that can capture an image of a brain thinking by measuring changes in tissue stiffness.

19 Aug 2019

White matter structure in the brain reflects individual differences in music sensitivity

The white matter structure in the brain reflects music sensitivity, according to a study by the research group on Cognition and Brain Plasticity of the Institute of Neurosciences of the University of Barcelona and the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute.

29 Jun 2019

New study may explain distinct speech processing functions of left and right brain

In the 1860s, French physician Paul Broca published his findings that the brain's speech production center was located in the left hemisphere

25 Jun 2019

Stress-induced changes in heart rate may impair auditory perception

Sudden hearing loss can be experienced in highly stressful situations, usually lasting a short time. Researchers at São Paulo State University in Brazil, collaborating with colleagues at Oxford Brookes University in the United Kingdom, have reported a discovery that contributes to a deeper understanding of this phenomenon.

7 Jun 2019

Study investigates how early blindness shapes sound processing

Adults who lost their vision at an early age have more refined auditory cortex responses to simple sounds than sighted individuals, according to new neuroimaging research published in JNeurosci.

From Society for Neuroscience 23 Apr 2019