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.

American Tinnitus Association awards $10,000 to Wayne State University student

Na Zhu, a Wayne State University College of Engineering student, has received the 2011 American Tinnitus Association Student Research Grant Program award. The program financially supports scientific studies that investigate and aim to find a cure for tinnitus.

12 Jul 2011

GUMC neuroscientists: Speech perception must have evolved from animals

Neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) have defined, for the first time, three different processing stages that a human brain needs to identify sounds such as speech - and discovered that they are the same as ones identified in non-human primates.

23 Jun 2011

Wayne State team receives $330,000 NSF grant to develop 3-D neural probe for tinnitus

A team of Wayne State University researchers was awarded $330,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a 3-D neural probe. Their aim is to develop an implantable device that will suppress tinnitus, a neurological disorder that affects more than 250 million people worldwide.

21 Jun 2011

Functional MRI acquired during speech stimulation predicts children with autism

Functional magnetic resonance imaging may provide an early and objective indicator of autism, according to researchers at Columbia University in New York City, who used the technique to document language impairment in autistic children.

31 May 2011

Research provides insight into brain reorganization following sensory loss

The part of the brain that uses hearing to determine sound location is reorganized in deaf animals to locate visual targets, according to a new study by a team of researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Western Ontario in Canada.

11 May 2011

Study: Visual cortex can dramatically change its function

When your brain encounters sensory stimuli, such as the scent of your morning coffee or the sound of a honking car, that input gets shuttled to the appropriate brain region for analysis. The coffee aroma goes to the olfactory cortex, while sounds are processed in the auditory cortex.

1 Mar 2011

Scientists probe functional connectivity among neurons in auditory cortex gives rise to map of acoustic space

Just as we visually map a room by spatially identifying the objects in it, we map our aural world based on the frequencies of sounds. The neurons within the brain's "hearing center"-the auditory cortex-are organized into modules that each respond to sounds within a specific frequency band. But how responses actually emanate from this complex network of neurons is still a mystery.

19 Oct 2010

Part of brain reorganizes to enhance visual abilities in deaf cats

Deaf or blind people often report enhanced abilities in their remaining senses, but up until now, no one has explained how and why that could be. Researchers at The University of Western Ontario, led by Stephen Lomber of The Centre for Brain and Mind have discovered there is a causal link between enhanced visual abilities and reorganization of the part of the brain that usually handles auditory input in congenitally deaf cats. The findings, published online in Nature Neuroscience, provide insight into the plasticity that may occur in the brains of deaf people.

11 Oct 2010

Mental exercises may help reverse age-related cognitive decline

Specialized brain training targeted at the regions of a rat's brain that process sound reversed many aspects of normal, age-related cognitive decline and improved the health of the brain cells, according to a new study from researchers at University of California, San Francisco.

21 Jul 2010

Study finds structural similarities in neocortices of humans and chickens

For more than a century, neuroscientists believed that the brains of humans and other mammals differed from the brains of other animals, such as birds (and so were presumably better). This belief was based, in part, upon the readily evident physical structure of the neocortex, the region of the brain responsible for complex cognitive behaviors.

3 Jul 2010

Study combines CT and VBM to provide accurate picture of autistic brain

A new study, the first of its kind, combines two complementary analytical brain imaging techniques, to provide a more comprehensive and accurate picture of the neuroanatomy of the autistic brain. The study, published in the April issue of neuroimaging journal Human Brain Mapping, was conducted by researchers at The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital - The Neuro, McGill University and the Universit- de Montr-al.

15 Apr 2010

Auditory cortex development becomes vulnerable if it does not receive appropriate stimulation at right time

Hearing scientist Daniel Polley, Ph.D., an investigator at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary's Eaton-Peabody Laboratories of Auditory Physiology, has gained new insight into why a relatively short-term hearing deprivation during childhood may lead to persistent hearing deficits, long after hearing is restored to normal.

11 Mar 2010

Findings could lead to new targeted therapies for speech and learning disabilities

A team of University of Oregon researchers have isolated an independent processing channel of synapses inside the brain's auditory cortex that deals specifically with shutting off sound processing at appropriate times.

11 Feb 2010

Researchers explore how brain circuitry and learning changes over time

New research shows our brains are a lot more chaotic than previously thought, and that this might be a good thing. Neurobiologists at the University of Maryland have discovered information about how the brain processes sound that challenges previous understandings of the auditory cortex, which had suggested an organization based on precise neuronal maps.

2 Feb 2010

Study suggests humans naturally process tactile information to perceive speech sounds

Humans use their whole bodies, not just their ears, to understand speech, according to University of British Columbia linguistics research.

1 Dec 2009

Tinnitus patients need more support and advice on healthcare options

As many as one in seven people will experience tinnitus, or ringing in their ears, at some time of their life, but not enough is being done to support patients who experience this distressing condition, according to an extensive research review in the November issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing.

4 Nov 2009

Not enough is being done to support patients suffering from tinnitus

3 Nov 2009

Research may facilitate improved understanding of music perception in human nervous system

Music serves as a natural and non-invasive intervention for patients with severe neurological disorders to promote long-term memory, social interaction and communication. However, there is currently no plausible explanation of its neural basis for why and how music affects physical and psychosocial responses.

21 Oct 2009

Non-invasive imaging technique can aid in diagnosing tinnitus

Complicating matters, physicians can rarely pinpoint the source of tinnitus, a chronic ringing of the head or ears that can be as quiet as a whisper or as loud as a jackhammer.

5 Oct 2009

Neuroscientists reach consensus on how the brain processes speech and language

Neuroscientists feel they are much closer to an accepted unified theory about how the brain processes speech and language, according to a scientist at Georgetown University Medical Center who first laid the concepts a decade ago and who has now published a review article confirming the theory.

26 May 2009