ORIGINAL ARTICLE
EFFECT OF SOUND INTENSITY ON LEVEL OF ACTIVATION IN AUDITORY CORTEX AS MEASURED BY FMRI
Tomasz Wolak 1, A-F
,
 
,
 
Joanna Wojcik 1, B,E
,
 
 
 
 
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1
World Hearing Center, Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing, 10 Mochnackiego Street, 02-042 Warszawa, Poland
 
 
A - Research concept and design; B - Collection and/or assembly of data; C - Data analysis and interpretation; D - Writing the article; E - Critical revision of the article; F - Final approval of article;
 
 
Publication date: 2017-12-31
 
 
Corresponding author
Tomasz Wolak   

Tomasz Wolak, Bioimaging Research Center, World Hearing Center , Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing, 10 Mochnackiego Street, 02-042 Warszawa, Poland, Phone: +48223560349, Email: t.wolak@ifps.org.pl
 
 
J Hear Sci 2017;7(4):20-27
 
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Background:
Despite rapid developments in fMRI, there is still ongoing debate on the optimal paradigm for evaluating the level of auditory cortex activation.

Material and Methods:
A number of modern neuroimaging methods can be used to assess brain responses to acoustic stimulation, but new paradigms are still needed. Here the sparse fMRI approach is used to examine frequency-specific activation in auditory cortex in 12 normal hearing individuals.

Results:
The size of activation expanded with increasing sound intensity and decreasing sound frequency. At the same time, the main site of frequency-specific activation remained the same across intensities, indicating fixed tonotopic organization. The findings of the study are explained in terms of basilar membrane phenomena such as the travelling wave pattern and spread of activation.

Conclusions:
Stimulation levels of at least 60 dB are necessary in order to obtain robust maps of group activation in auditory cortex.

FUNDING
This work was supported by Polish National Science Center grant 2012/05/N/NZ4/02 awarded to Dr. Katarzyna Cieśla
 
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