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The present study addresses the functional role of the temporal and frontal lobes in auditory change detection. Prior event-related potential (ERP) research suggested that the mismatch negativity (MMN) reflects the involvement of a temporofrontal network subserving auditory change detection processes and the initiation of an involuntary attention switch. In the present study participants were presented with repetitive spectrally rich sounds. Infrequent changes of either small (10% change), medium (30% change), or large (100% change) magnitude were embedded in the stimulus train. ERPs and fMRI measures were obtained in the same subjects in subsequent sessions. Significant hemodynamic activation in the superior temporal gyri (STG) bilaterally and the opercular part of the right inferior frontal gyrus was observed for large and medium deviants only. ERPs showed that small deviants elicited MMN when presented in silence but not when presented with recorded MR background noise, indicating that small deviants were hardly detected under fMRI conditions. The MR signal change in temporal lobe regions was larger for large than for medium deviants. For the right fronto-opercular cortex the opposite pattern was observed. The strength of the temporal activation correlated with the amplitude of the change-related ERP at around 110 ms from stimulus onset while the frontal activation correlated with the change-related ERP at around 150 ms. These results suggest that the right fronto-opercular cortex is part of the neural network generating the MMN. Three alternative explanations of these findings are discussed.

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BackgroundWhile human auditory cortex is known to contain tonotopically organized auditory cortical fields (ACFs), little is known about how processing in these fields is modulated by other acoustic features or by attention.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and population-based cortical surface analysis to characterize the tonotopic organization of human auditory cortex and analyze the influence of tone intensity, ear of delivery, scanner background noise, and intermodal selective attention on auditory cortex activations. Medial auditory cortex surrounding Heschl's gyrus showed large sensory (unattended) activations with two mirror-symmetric tonotopic fields similar to those observed in non-human primates. Sensory responses in medial regions had symmetrical distributions with respect to the left and right hemispheres, were enlarged for tones of increased intensity, and were enhanced when sparse image acquisition reduced scanner acoustic noise. Spatial distribution analysis suggested that changes in tone intensity shifted activation within isofrequency bands. Activations to monaural tones were enhanced over the hemisphere contralateral to stimulation, where they produced activations similar to those produced by binaural sounds. Lateral regions of auditory cortex showed small sensory responses that were larger in the right than left hemisphere, lacked tonotopic organization, and were uninfluenced by acoustic parameters. Sensory responses in both medial and lateral auditory cortex decreased in magnitude throughout stimulus blocks. Attention-related modulations (ARMs) were larger in lateral than medial regions of auditory cortex and appeared to arise primarily in belt and parabelt auditory fields. ARMs lacked tonotopic organization, were unaffected by acoustic parameters, and had distributions that were distinct from those of sensory responses. Unlike the gradual adaptation seen for sensory responses, ARMs increased in amplitude throughout stimulus blocks.Conclusions/SignificanceThe results are consistent with the view that medial regions of human auditory cortex contain tonotopically organized core and belt fields that map the basic acoustic features of sounds while surrounding higher-order parabelt regions are tuned to more abstract stimulus attributes. Intermodal selective attention enhances processing in neuronal populations that are partially distinct from those activated by unattended stimuli.

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