Department of Neurosurgery, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America.
Department of Neurological Surgery, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon, United States of America.
PLoS Biol. 2024 Sep 6;22(9):e3002774. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002774. eCollection 2024 Sep.
Modular organization at approximately 1 mm scale could be fundamental to cortical processing, but its presence in human association cortex is unknown. Using custom-built, high-density electrode arrays placed on the cortical surface of 7 patients undergoing awake craniotomy for tumor excision, we investigated receptive speech processing in the left (dominant) human posterior superior temporal gyrus. Responses to consonant-vowel syllables and noise-vocoded controls recorded with 1,024 channel micro-grids at 200 μm pitch demonstrated roughly circular domains approximately 1.7 mm in diameter, with sharp boundaries observed in 128 channel linear arrays at 50 μm pitch, possibly consistent with a columnar organization. Peak latencies to syllables in different modules were bimodally distributed centered at 252 and 386 ms. Adjacent modules were sharply delineated from each other by their distinct time courses and stimulus selectivity. We suggest that receptive language cortex may be organized in discrete processing modules.
模块化组织约 1 毫米尺度可能是皮质处理的基础，但在人类联合皮质中其存在尚不清楚。我们使用定制的高密度电极阵列，置于 7 名接受清醒开颅手术切除肿瘤的患者大脑皮质表面，研究了左（优势）半球人后上颞叶对言语的接受处理。用 200μm 间距的 1024 通道微网格记录的辅音-元音音节和噪声编码对照的反应，显示出大约 1.7 毫米直径的圆形区域，在 50μm 间距的 128 通道线性阵列中观察到清晰的边界，可能与柱状组织一致。不同模块中音节的峰值潜伏期呈双峰分布，中心在 252ms 和 386ms。相邻模块通过其独特的时间进程和刺激选择性来清晰区分。我们认为，接受语言皮质可能以离散的处理模块组织。
