Short-term functional plasticity in the human auditory cortex: an fMRI study.

Applying functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques, hemodynamic responses elicited by sequences of pure tones of 950 Hz (standard) and deviant tones of 952, 954, and 958 Hz were measured before and 1 week after subjects had been trained at frequency discrimination for five sessions (over 1 week) using an oddball procedure. The task of the subject was to detect deviants differing from the standard stimulus. Frequency discrimination improved during the training session for three subjects (performance gain: T+) but not for three other subjects (no performance gain: T-). Hemodynamic responses in the auditory cortex comprising the planum temporale, planum polare and sulcus temporalis superior significantly decreased during training only for the T+ group. These activation changes were strongest for those stimuli accompanied by the strongest performance gain (958 and 954 Hz). There was no difference with respect to the hemodynamic responses in the auditory cortex for the T- group and the control group (CO) who did not received any pitch discrimination training. The results suggest a plastic reorganization of the cortical representation for the trained frequencies which can be best explained on the basis of 'fast learning' theories.

[1]  Lutz Jäncke,et al.  Attention modulates activity in the primary and the secondary auditory cortex: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in human subjects , 1999, Neuroscience Letters.

[2]  M. Gabriel,et al.  Learning and Computational Neuroscience: Foundations of Adaptive Networks , 1990 .

[3]  F. Rösler,et al.  Auditory memory in congenitally blind adults: a behavioral-electrophysiological investigation. , 2001, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[4]  Norman M. Weinberger,et al.  Sensitization induced receptive field plasticity in the auditory cortex is independent of CS-modality , 1992, Brain Research.

[5]  William M. Jenkins,et al.  Neocortical representational dynamics in adult primates: Implications for neuropsychology , 1990, Neuropsychologia.

[6]  J. Binder,et al.  Neuroanatomy of language processing studied with functional MRI. , 1997, Clinical neuroscience.

[7]  A. Dufour,et al.  Improved auditory spatial sensitivity in near-sighted subjects. , 2000, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[8]  N. Weinberger.  Dynamic regulation of receptive fields and maps in the adult sensory cortex. , 1995, Annual Review of Neuroscience.

[9]  J. Bakin,et al.  Neural adaptive information processing: A preliminary model of receptive field plasticity in auditory cortex during Pavlovian conditioning , 1990 .

[10]  M. Peters,et al.  Description and validation of a flexible and broadly usable handedness questionnaire. , 1998, Laterality.

[11]  E. T. Possing,et al.  Human temporal lobe activation by speech and nonspeech sounds. , 2000, Cerebral cortex.

[12]  Selene Cansino,et al.  Neuromagnetic fields reveal cortical plasticity when learning an auditory discrimination task , 1997, Brain Research.

[13]  G. G. Stokes.  "J." , 1890, The New Yale Book of Quotations.

[14]  Larry E. Roberts,et al.  Plastic changes in the auditory cortex induced by intensive frequency discrimination training , 2000, Neuroreport.

[15]  J. Kaas.  Plasticity of sensory and motor maps in adult mammals. , 1991, Annual review of neuroscience.

[16]  S E Petersen,et al.  Detection of cortical activation during averaged single trials of a cognitive task using functional magnetic resonance imaging. , 1996, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[17]  Marta Kutas,et al.  Altered visual-evoked potentials in congenitally deaf adults , 1983, Brain Research.

[18]  S. Posse,et al.  Intensity coding of auditory stimuli: an fMRI study , 1998, Neuropsychologia.

[19]  M. Merzenich,et al.  Plasticity in the frequency representation of primary auditory cortex following discrimination training in adult owl monkeys , 1993, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[20]  S. Hillyard,et al.  Improved auditory spatial tuning in blind humans , 1999, Nature.

[21]  Stephen M. Rao,et al.  Human Brain Language Areas Identified by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging , 1997, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[22]  E. Altenmüller,et al.  Event-related brain potentials to sound omissions differ in musicians and non-musicians , 2001, Neuroscience Letters.

[23]  Terry M. Peters,et al.  3D statistical neuroanatomical models from 305 MRI volumes , 1993, 1993 IEEE Conference Record Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference.

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

[25]  Eckart Altenmüller,et al.  Neuroperception: Superior auditory spatial tuning in conductors , 2001, Nature.

[26]  Oov Sagl.  Plasticity of Spatial Interactions in Early Vision , 1995 .

[27]  Leslie G. Ungerleider,et al.  Functional MRI evidence for adult motor cortex plasticity during motor skill learning , 1995, Nature.

[28]  B. Julesz,et al.  Maturational Windows And Adult Cortical Plasticity , 1995 .

[29]  B Lütkenhöner,et al.  Magnetoencephalographic studies of functional organization and plasticity of the human auditory cortex. , 2000, Journal of clinical neurophysiology : official publication of the American Electroencephalographic Society.

[30]  J. Edeline,et al.  Receptive field plasticity in the auditory cortex during frequency discrimination training: selective retuning independent of task difficulty. , 1993, Behavioral neuroscience.

[31]  N. Kraus,et al.  The time course of auditory perceptual learning: neurophysiological changes during speech‐sound training , 1998, Neuroreport.

[32]  L. Jäncke,et al.  The time course of the BOLD response in the human auditory cortex to acoustic stimuli of different duration. , 1999, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[33]  P A Bandettini,et al.  Effects of stimulus rate on signal response during functional magnetic resonance imaging of auditory cortex. , 1994, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[34]  Neural plasticity detected in short‐and long‐term cochlear implant users using PET , 2000, Neuroreport.

[35]  B. Schreurs,et al.  A functional anatomical study of associative learning in humans. , 1994, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[36]  T. Carrell,et al.  Central Auditory System Plasticity Associated with Speech Discrimination Training , 1995, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[37]  K. Zilles,et al.  Recognition of emotional prosody and verbal components of spoken language: an fMRI study. , 2000, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[38]  T. Carrell,et al.  Central auditory system plasticity: generalization to novel stimuli following listening training. , 1997, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[39]  R. Oostenveld,et al.  Increased auditory cortical representation in musicians , 1998, Nature.