Brain-freeze reveals auditory pathways

The brain's sound processing areas are split into two distinct regions — one which determines what a sound is, the other which tracks where it's coming from, according to linkurl:research;http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nn.2108.html published online today (April 13) in linkurl:Nature Neuroscience.;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54526/ For decades, scientists have racked their brains to determine how the mammalian cerebral cortex handles different types of linkurl:sensory;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/home/53810/ information. In the linkurl:visual system,;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/15821/ two different linkurl:brain;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/25063/ areas are involved for determining what an object is and where it's located, but it was unclear whether this "what/where" hypothesis was true for the auditory system as well. Physiological recordings in animals, including humans, have been consistent with two pathways in auditory regions, but conclusive evidence was lacking. Now, researchers have separated the "what" and the "where" of hearing, and shown that dual-processing also exists in the auditory cortex. "The brain breaks down information into two fundamental dimensions," said linkurl:Stephen Lomber;http://www.physpharm.med.uwo.ca/department/faculty/lombers.html of the University...