The Analysis for Activations in the Brain during Hearing the Amplitude-Modulated Tone by fMRI Measurement

In audiometry, ABR (Auditory Brainstem Response) is widely used. However, it shows low accuracy in low frequency band. Meanwhile, AMFR (Amplitude-Modulation-Following Response), the response during hearing an amplitude-modulated tone, has high frequency specificity and is brought to attention. As the first step to clinical application of AMFR, we investigated the activated areas in a brain when the subjects hear SAM tone (Sinusoidally Amplitude-Modulated tone) with both ears. We measured following two signals. One is the difference of BOLD (Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent) signal between hearing SAM tone vs. silence, the other is the difference of BOLD signal between hearing SAM tone vs. unmodulated tone. As a result, in the case of SAM vs. silence, the bilaterally auditory cortex (Broadmann Area 41, 42), the biratelally BA 10, left superior frontal gyrus and right superior temporal gyrus were activated (p<0.0037, uncorrected). In the case of SAM vs. unmodulated tone, the bilaterally superior frontal gyrus (BA 6) and precuneus (BA 7), neighboring area including the bilaterally inferior parietal lobule (BA 40), the bilaterally medial frontal gyrus and superior frontal gyrus were activated (p<0.021, uncorrected). Activations of visual perception due to eye-opened state were detected in some parts of activations. As a result, we inferred that modulated tone was recognized in the medial frontal gyrus and inferior parietal lobule was the part related to perception of amplitude-modulation.

[1]  R Schoonhoven,et al.  A whole head MEG study of the amplitude-modulation-following response: phase coherence, group delay and dipole source analysis , 2003, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[2]  Edward E. Smith,et al.  A Parametric Study of Prefrontal Cortex Involvement in Human Working Memory , 1996, NeuroImage.

[3]  P. Goldman-Rakic,et al.  Infrequent events transiently activate human prefrontal and parietal cortex as measured by functional MRI. , 1997, Journal of neurophysiology.

[4]  R. Benson,et al.  Responses to rare visual target and distractor stimuli using event-related fMRI. , 2000, Journal of neurophysiology.

[5]  P. Skudlarski,et al.  Event-related fMRI of auditory and visual oddball tasks. , 2000, Magnetic resonance imaging.

[6]  G. Glover.  Deconvolution of Impulse Response in Event-Related BOLD fMRI1 , 1999, NeuroImage.

[7]  T Fuse,et al.  Frequency specificity of amplitude-modulation-following response detected by phase spectral analysis. , 1993, Audiology : official organ of the International Society of Audiology.

[8]  R. Goebel,et al.  The functional neuroanatomy of target detection: an fMRI study of visual and auditory oddball tasks. , 1999, Cerebral cortex.

[9]  M M Mesulam,et al.  Large‐scale neurocognitive networks and distributed processing for attention, language, and memory , 1990, Annals of neurology.

[10]  B. Ardekani,et al.  Functional magnetic resonance imaging of brain activity in the visual oddball task. , 2002, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[11]  J. Gore,et al.  Measurements of the Temporal fMRI Response of the Human Auditory Cortex to Trains of Tones , 1998, NeuroImage.

[12]  Douglas C. Noll,et al.  A Developmental Functional MRI Study of Spatial Working Memory , 1999, NeuroImage.

[13]  T. Yoshiura,et al.  Functional MRI study of auditory and visual oddball tasks. , 1999, Neuroreport.

[14]  N. Logothetis,et al.  Neurophysiological investigation of the basis of the fMRI signal , 2001, Nature.

[15]  K. Kiehl,et al.  An event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study of an auditory oddball task in schizophrenia , 2001, Schizophrenia Research.

[16]  D. V. von Cramon,et al.  Combining electrophysiological and hemodynamic measures of the auditory oddball. , 1999, Psychophysiology.

[17]  P. Skudlarski,et al.  Correlations and dissociations between BOLD signal and P300 amplitude in an auditory oddball task: a parametric approach to combining fMRI and ERP. , 2002, Magnetic resonance imaging.