Deouell Leon Y, Heller Aaron S, Malach Rafael, D'Esposito Mark, Knight Robert T
Department of Psychology and the Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91905, Israel.
Neuron. 2007 Sep 20;55(6):985-96. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2007.08.019.
The neural basis of spatial processing in the auditory cortex has been controversial. Human fMRI studies suggest that a part of the planum temporale (PT) is involved in auditory spatial processing, but it was recently argued that this region is active only when the task requires voluntary spatial localization. If this is the case, then this region cannot harbor an ongoing spatial representation of the acoustic environment. In contrast, we show in three fMRI experiments that a region in the human medial PT is sensitive to background auditory spatial changes, even when subjects are not engaged in a spatial localization task, and in fact attend the visual modality. During such times, this area responded to rare location shifts, and even more so when spatial variation increased, consistent with spatially selective adaptation. Thus, acoustic space is represented in the human PT even when sound processing is not required by the ongoing task.
听觉皮层中空间处理的神经基础一直存在争议。人类功能磁共振成像（fMRI）研究表明，颞平面（PT）的一部分参与听觉空间处理，但最近有人认为，只有当任务需要自主空间定位时，该区域才会活跃。如果是这样，那么该区域就不可能存在对声学环境的持续空间表征。相比之下，我们在三个fMRI实验中表明，人类内侧PT中的一个区域对背景听觉空间变化敏感，即使受试者没有参与空间定位任务，实际上关注的是视觉模态。在此期间，该区域对罕见的位置变化有反应，当空间变化增加时反应更强烈，这与空间选择性适应一致。因此，即使当前任务不需要声音处理，声学空间也会在人类PT中得到表征。
