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Orthogonal representation of sound dimensions in the primate midbrain

Nature Neuroscience volume 14, pages 423–425 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Natural sounds are characterized by their spectral content and the modulation of energy over time. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging in awake macaques, we observed topographical representations of these spectral and temporal dimensions in a single structure, the inferior colliculus, the principal auditory nucleus in the midbrain. These representations are organized as a map with two approximately perpendicular axes: one representing increasing temporal rate and the other increasing spectral frequency.

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Figure 1: BOLD response maps in the inferior colliculus.
Figure 2: Estimation of gradient directions by two-dimensional regression analysis.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank D. Hunter for his assistance in animal handling and data recording. This research was funded by the Wellcome Trust.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Neuroscience, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

    Simon Baumann, Timothy D Griffiths, Li Sun, Christopher I Petkov, Alexander Thiele & Adrian Rees

Authors
  1. Simon Baumann
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  2. Timothy D Griffiths
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  3. Li Sun
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  4. Christopher I Petkov
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  5. Alexander Thiele
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  6. Adrian Rees
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Contributions

S.B., T.D.G. and A.R. designed the experiment. A.T. provided the animals and supervised their handling. L.S. provided the echo planar imaging sequences and optimized them for each animal. S.B. recorded the data. S.B. analyzed the data with help from C.I.P. S.B. and A.R. prepared the manuscript with contributions from T.D.G., A.T., C.I.P. and L.S.

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Correspondence to Simon Baumann.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Text and Figures

Supplementary Figures 1–3, Supplementary Table 1 and Supplementary Methods (PDF 2413 kb)

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Baumann, S., Griffiths, T., Sun, L. et al. Orthogonal representation of sound dimensions in the primate midbrain. Nat Neurosci 14, 423–425 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2771

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