Auditory cortical representation of music favours the perceived beat.

ABSTRACT: Previous research has shown that musical beat perception is a surprisingly complex phenomenon involving widespread neural coordination across higher-order sensory, motor and cognitive areas. However, the question of how low-level auditory processing must necessarily shape these dynamics, and therefore perception, is not well understood. Here, we present evidence that the auditory cortical representation of music, even in the absence of motor or top-down activations, already favours the beat that will be perceived. Extracellular firing rates in the rat auditory cortex were recorded in response to 20 musical excerpts diverse in tempo and genre, for which musical beat perception had been characterized by the tapping behaviour of 40 human listeners. We found that firing rates in the rat audito

SUBMITTER: Rajendran VG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7137933 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature