Department
Audiology
Abstract
The frequency-following response (FFR) is a measure of the brain's periodic sound encoding. It is of increasing importance for studying the human auditory nervous system due to numerous associations with auditory cognition and dysfunction. Although the FFR is widely interpreted as originating from brainstem nuclei, a recent study using MEG suggested that there is also a right-lateralized contribution from the auditory cortex at the fundamental frequency (Coffey et al., 2016b). Our objectives in the present work were to validate and better localize this result using a completely different neuroimaging modality and to document the relationships between the FFR, the onset response, and cortical activity. Using a combination of EEG, fMRI, and diffusion-weighted imaging, we show that activity in the right auditory cortex is related to individual differences in FFR–fundamental frequency (f0) strength, a finding that was replicated with two independent stimulus sets, with and without acoustic energy at the fundamental frequency. We demonstrate a dissociation between this FFR–f0-sensitive response in the right and an area in left auditory cortex that is sensitive to individual differences in the timing of initial response to sound onset. Relationships to timing and their lateralization are supported by parallels in the microstructure of the underlying white matter, implicating a mechanism involving neural conduction efficiency. These data confirm that the FFR has a cortical contribution and suggest ways in which auditory neuroscience may be advanced by connecting early sound representation to measures of higher-level sound processing and cognitive function.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Fall 1-25-2017
Publication Title
Journal of Neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience
ISSN
0270-6474
Volume
37
Issue
4
DOI
10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1265-16.2016
First Page
830
Last Page
838
Recommended Citation
Coffey, Emily B.J.; Musacchia, Gabriella; and Zatorre, Robert J., "Cortical Correlates of the Auditory Frequency-Following and Onset Responses: EEG and fMRI Evidence" (2017). All Faculty Scholarship. 112.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/shs-all/112
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
