Neural representation of pitch salience in the human brainstem revealed by psychophysical and electrophysiological indices.

ABSTRACT: Acoustically, pitch is related to the temporal regularity or periodicity of a sound. Perceptual and electrophysiologic studies have revealed that pitch salience grows systematically with increasing stimulus periodicity. The aim of this study is to show that information relevant to pitch salience is already encoded in the phase-locked neural activity of brainstem neurons in order to demonstrate that the neural manifestation of pitch salience emerges well before cortical involvement. Brainstem frequency following responses (FFRs) were recorded from participants in response to linguistic tones, which varied only in their degree of pitch salience. Neural pitch strength was computed from FFRs using autocorrelation algorithms. In addition, behavioral frequency difference limens (F0 DLs) were mea

SUBMITTER: Krishnan A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3171186 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature