Rinne Teemu, Balk Marja H, Koistinen Sonja, Autti Taina, Alho Kimmo, Sams Mikko
Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
J Neurophysiol. 2008 Dec;100(6):3323-7. doi: 10.1152/jn.90607.2008. Epub 2008 Oct 15.
Selective auditory attention powerfully modulates neural activity in the human auditory cortex (AC). In contrast, the role of attention in subcortical auditory processing is not well established. Here, we used functional MRI (fMRI) to examine activation of the human inferior colliculus (IC) during strictly controlled auditory attention tasks. The IC is an obligatory midbrain nucleus of the ascending auditory pathway with diverse internal and external connections. The IC also receives a massive descending projection from the AC, suggesting that cortical processes affect IC operations. In this study, 21 subjects selectively attended to left-ear or right-ear sounds and ignored sounds delivered to the other ear. IC activations depended on the direction of attention, indicating that auditory processing in the human IC is not only determined by acoustic input but also by the current behavioral goals.
选择性听觉注意有力地调节人类听觉皮层（AC）中的神经活动。相比之下，注意在皮层下听觉处理中的作用尚未明确确立。在此，我们使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来检查在严格控制的听觉注意任务期间人类下丘（IC）的激活情况。下丘是听觉上行通路中一个必不可少的中脑核团，具有多样的内部和外部连接。下丘还接收来自听觉皮层的大量下行投射，这表明皮层过程会影响下丘的运作。在本研究中，21名受试者选择性地关注左耳或右耳的声音，并忽略传递到另一耳的声音。下丘的激活取决于注意的方向，这表明人类下丘中的听觉处理不仅由声音输入决定，还由当前的行为目标决定。
