QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

HOME  |   SEARCH  |   ARCHIVE  |   SUBSCRIBE  |   CONTACT  |   HELP

The Journal of Neuroscience, January 28, 2009, 29(4):1034-1045; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4089-08.2009

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Supplemental Data Submit an eLetter Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Related articles in J. Neurosci. Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (3) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Remedios, R. Articles by Kayser, C. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Remedios, R. Articles by Kayser, C.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
An Auditory Region in the Primate Insular Cortex Responding Preferentially to Vocal Communication Sounds

Ryan Remedios,¹ Nikos K. Logothetis,^1,2 and Christoph Kayser¹

¹Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tübingen, Germany, and ²Division of Imaging Science and Biomedical Engineering, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PT, United Kingdom

Correspondence should be addressed to Christoph Kayser, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Spemannstrasse 38, 72076 Tübingen, Germany. Email: Christoph.kayser{at}tuebingen.mpg.de

Human imaging studies implicate the insular cortex in processing complex sounds and vocal communication signals such as speech. In addition, lesions of the insula often manifest as deficits in sound or speech recognition (auditory agnosia) and speech production. While models of acoustic perception assign an important role to the insula, little is known about the underlying neuronal substrate. Studying a vocal primate, we identified a predominantly auditory region in the caudal insula and therein discovered a neural representation of conspecific communication sounds. When probed with natural sounds, insula neurons exhibited higher response selectivity than neurons in auditory cortex, and in contrast to these, responded preferentially to conspecific vocalizations. Importantly, insula neurons not only preferred conspecific vocalizations over a wide range of environmental sounds and other animal vocalizations, but also over acoustically manipulated versions of these, demonstrating that this preference for vocalizations arises both from spectral and temporal features of the sounds. In addition, individual insula neurons responded highly selectively to only a few vocalizations and allowed the decoding of sound identity from single-trial responses. These findings characterize the caudal insula as a selectively responding auditory region, possibly part of a processing stream involved in the representation of communication sounds. Importantly, our results provide a neural counterpart for the human imaging and lesion findings and uncover a basis for a supposed role of the insula in processing vocal communication sounds such as speech.

Key words: vocalizations; auditory pathways; natural sounds; electrophysiology; macaque monkey; insula

---

Received Aug. 27, 2008; revised Dec. 19, 2008; accepted Dec. 21, 2008.

Correspondence should be addressed to Christoph Kayser, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Spemannstrasse 38, 72076 Tübingen, Germany. Email: Christoph.kayser{at}tuebingen.mpg.de

Related articles in J. Neurosci.:

Selectivity for Conspecific Vocalizations within the Primate Insular Cortex

Rebecca Watson
J. Neurosci. 2009 29: 6769-6770. [Full Text]  

This article has been cited by other articles:

				L. A. Renier, I. Anurova, A. G. De Volder, S. Carlson, J. VanMeter, and J. P. Rauschecker Multisensory Integration of Sounds and Vibrotactile Stimuli in Processing Streams for "What" and "Where" J. Neurosci., September 2, 2009; 29(35): 10950 - 10960. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				R. D. S. Raizada, F.-M. Tsao, H.-M. Liu, and P. K. Kuhl Quantifying the Adequacy of Neural Representations for a Cross-Language Phonetic Discrimination Task: Prediction of Individual Differences Cereb Cortex, April 22, 2009; (2009) bhp076v1. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. K. Bizley and K. M. M. Walker Distributed Sensitivity to Conspecific Vocalizations and Implications for the Auditory Dual Stream Hypothesis J. Neurosci., March 11, 2009; 29(10): 3011 - 3013. [Full Text] [PDF]

Home  |   Search  |   Archive  |   Subscribe  |   Contact  |   Help