HUMAN CORTICAL AREAS SELECTIVELY ACTIVATED BY APPARENT SOUND MOVEMENT

Background: Positron emission tomography (PET) measures cerebral blood flow, an indicator of neural activity. PET has been used successfully to identify visual association areas in the human brain, which are in volved in the analysis of different aspects of visual stimuli. However , comparable studies have not yet been carried out for the human audit ory system. Results: We have attempted to identify human cortical area s that are selectively activated during sound movement analysis. Using PET, we have identified cortical areas that appeared to be selectivel y activated while human subjects attended to the position of a moving sound image compared to when they attended to a stationary sound image . The areas are in the right insula, adjacent to the right posterior c ingulate, and in the cerebellum. Conclusions: We suggest that the insu la may be acting as an auditory association cortex involved in sound m ovement analysis, analogous to area V5 in the visual system.