Auditory cortex

Auditory cortex
Auditory cortex in the human brain
Details
Identifiers
Latincortex auditivus
MeSHD001303
NeuroNames1354
FMA226221
Anatomical terms of neuroanatomy
Coronal section of a human brain. BA41(red) and BA42(green) are auditory cortex. BA22(yellow) is Brodmann area 22, HF(blue) is hippocampal formation and pSTG is posterior part of superior temporal gyrus.

The auditory cortex is the part of the temporal lobe that processes auditory information in humans and many other vertebrates. It is a part of the auditory system, performing basic and higher functions in hearing, such as possible relations to language switching.[1][2] It is located bilaterally, roughly at the upper sides of the temporal lobes – in humans, curving down and onto the medial surface, on the superior temporal plane, within the lateral sulcus and comprising parts of the transverse temporal gyri, and the superior temporal gyrus, including the planum polare and planum temporale (roughly Brodmann areas 41 and 42, and partially 22).[3][4]

The auditory cortex takes part in the spectrotemporal, meaning involving time and frequency, analysis of the inputs passed on from the ear. The cortex then filters and passes on the information to the dual stream of speech processing.[5] The auditory cortex's function may help explain why particular brain damage leads to particular outcomes. For example, unilateral destruction, in a region of the auditory pathway above the cochlear nucleus, results in slight hearing loss, whereas bilateral destruction results in cortical deafness.

  1. ^ Cf. Pickles, James O. (2012). An Introduction to the Physiology of Hearing (4th ed.). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, p. 238.
  2. ^ Blanco-Elorrieta, Esti; Liina, Pylkkanen (2017-08-16). "Bilingual language switching in the lab vs. in the wild: The Spatio-temporal dynamics of adaptive language control". Journal of Neuroscience. 37 (37): 9022–9036. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0553-17.2017. PMC 5597983. PMID 28821648.
  3. ^ Cf. Pickles, James O. (2012). An Introduction to the Physiology of Hearing (4th ed.). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp. 215–217.
  4. ^ Nakai, Y; Jeong, JW; Brown, EC; Rothermel, R; Kojima, K; Kambara, T; Shah, A; Mittal, S; Sood, S; Asano, E (2017). "Three- and four-dimensional mapping of speech and language in patients with epilepsy". Brain. 140 (5): 1351–1370. doi:10.1093/brain/awx051. PMC 5405238. PMID 28334963.Open access icon
  5. ^ Hickok, Gregory; Poeppel, David (May 2007). "The cortical organization of speech processing". Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 8 (5): 393–402. doi:10.1038/nrn2113. ISSN 1471-0048. PMID 17431404. S2CID 6199399.