Brain center for locating sound identified

BERKELEY, Calif., Sept. 20 (UPI) -- A joint U.S.-Israeli study has identified the region of the human brain responsible for perceiving the location of sounds.

Leon Deouell and colleagues at the University of California-Berkeley and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem presented bursts of noise to experimental subjects who wore headphones. The subjects' brains were simultaneously scanned by magnetic resonance imaging to show areas of activity.

The study participants were also given distracting tasks to perform during the bursts of sounds. Researchers concluded a brain region called the planum temporale was consistently activated, suggesting neurons in that region identify the location of sounds in the environment regardless of a person's attentiveness or intentions.

"Space representation in this region may provide the neural substrate needed for an orientation response to critical auditory events and for linking auditory information with information acquired through other modalities," the researchers wrote.

The study by Deouell of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Aaron Heller, Mark D'Esposito and Robert Knight of the University of California-Berkeley; and Rafael Malach of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is reported in the journal Neuron.

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