Auditory spatial deficits in the personal and extrapersonal frames of reference due to cortical lesions

doi:10.1016/0028-3932(81)90073-7

Neuropsychologia

Volume 19, Issue 3, 1981, Pages 435-443

https://doi.org/10.1016/0028-3932(81)90073-7 Get rights and content

Abstract

Twenty-nine patients with unilateral cortical lesions were asked to localize simple auditory stimuli (the personal frame of reference) and to bisect the space between two auditory stimuli (the extra-personal frame of reference). Results indicate that the displacement error scores of the right posterior group were consistently greater than those of all other groups (the left posterior, right anterior, left anterior and normal control) in both frames of reference. Error analysis suggests that the right posterior effect reflects spatial dysfunction common to both hemispaces rather than the contralateral deficit characteristic of unilateral neglect.

Résumé

On a demandé à 29 malades avec lésions corticales unilatérales de localiser des stimulus auditifs simples (cadre personnel de référence) et de séparer l'espace entre deux stimulus auditifs (cadre extra-personnel de référence). Les scores d'erreurs de déplacement du groupe postérieur droit était plus élevés, et de façon cohérente, que ceux de tous les autres groupes (postérieur gauche, antérieur droit, antérieur gauche et contrôles) selon les deux cadres de références. L'analyse des erreurs suggére que l'effet postérieur droit traduit une dysfonction spatiale commune aux deux hémi-espaces plutôt qu'un déficit contro-latéral caractéristique de la négligence unilatérale.

Zusammenfassung

29 Patienten mit einseitigen kortikalen Läsionen wurden aufgefordert, einfache akustische Stimuli zu lokalisieren (persönliche Referenz) und den Raum zwischen zwei akustischen Stimuli zu halbieren (extrapersonale Referenz). Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daβ Seitwärtsverlagerungen bei der Gruppe mit rechtsseitig rückwärtiger Hirnschädigung konsistent gröβer waren als bei allen anderen Gruppen (links rückwärtig, rechts vorne, links vorne und normale Kontrollpersonen) in beiden Bedingungen./Fehleranalyse legte es nahe, daβ der Effekt einer rechtsseitig rückwärtigen Hirnläsion eine räumliche Funktionsstörung anzeigt, die beiden Raumhälften gemeinsam ist und nicht das kontralaterale Defizit, das für einseitige Vernachlässigung typisch ist.

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Speech perception in “cocktail-party” situations, in which a sound source of interest has to be extracted out of multiple irrelevant sounds, poses a remarkable challenge to the human auditory system. Studies on structural and electrophysiological correlates of auditory selective spatial attention revealed critical roles of the posterior temporal cortex and the N2 event-related potential (ERP) component in the underlying processes. Here, we explored effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to posterior temporal cortex on neurophysiological correlates of auditory selective spatial attention, with a specific focus on the N2. In a single-blind, sham-controlled crossover design with baseline and follow-up measurements, monopolar anodal and cathodal tDCS was applied for 16 min to the right posterior superior temporal cortex. Two age groups of human subjects, a younger (n = 20; age 18–30 yrs) and an older group (n = 19; age 66–77 yrs), completed an auditory free-field multiple-speakers localization task while ERPs were recorded. The ERP data showed an offline effect of anodal, but not cathodal, tDCS immediately after DC offset for targets contralateral, but not ipsilateral, to the hemisphere of tDCS, without differences between groups. This effect mainly consisted in a substantial increase of the N2 amplitude by 0.9 μV (SE 0.4 μV; d = 0.40) compared with sham tDCS. At the same point in time, cortical source localization revealed a reduction of activity in ipsilateral (right) posterior parietal cortex. Also, localization error was improved after anodal, but not cathodal, tDCS. Given that both the N2 and the posterior parietal cortex are involved in processes of auditory selective spatial attention, these results suggest that anodal tDCS specifically enhanced inhibitory attentional brain processes underlying the focusing onto a target sound source, possibly by improved suppression of irrelevant distracters.
Auditory neglect in children following perinatal stroke
2019, Behavioural Brain Research
Auditory neglect has been found in adults with right hemisphere focal brain lesions following strokes. Visual and tactile neglect has been found in children following both left and right hemisphere lesions resulting from perinatal strokes. The present cross-sectional study assessed auditory neglect in children with early unilateral brain damage from perinatal stroke. Twenty-six children with perinatal stroke and matched controls participated. All were asked to identify the location of a pure tone presented in left or right auditory fields. We found that children who had experienced left hemisphere perinatal strokes were significantly better at localizing sounds on the left side of space than the right side of space, and that response times improved with age on a normal trajectory relative to controls in left hemispace, while they did not improve normally in right hemispace. Children with right hemisphere perinatal strokes were significantly worse at localizing sounds on the right side of space relative to typically developing controls, and did not follow control trajectories for improvement in response times on the left or the right sides of space. Our preliminary results suggest that left hemisphere perinatal strokes may result in contralateral auditory neglect, while right hemisphere perinatal strokes may result in bilateral auditory neglect. Neglect was more severe in children with parietal lobe involvement, suggesting that the parietal lobe may play a dominant role in auditory attention in the developing brain.
Keeping track of sound objects in space: The contribution of early-stage auditory areas
2018, Hearing Research
The influential dual-stream model of auditory processing stipulates that information pertaining to the meaning and to the position of a given sound object is processed in parallel along two distinct pathways, the ventral and dorsal auditory streams. Functional independence of the two processing pathways is well documented by conscious experience of patients with focal hemispheric lesions. On the other hand there is growing evidence that the meaning and the position of a sound are combined early in the processing pathway, possibly already at the level of early-stage auditory areas. Here, we investigated how early auditory areas integrate sound object meaning and space (simulated by interaural time differences) using a repetition suppression fMRI paradigm at 7 T. Subjects listen passively to environmental sounds presented in blocks of repetitions of the same sound object (same category) or different sounds objects (different categories), perceived either in the left or right space (no change within block) or shifted left-to-right or right-to-left halfway in the block (change within block). Environmental sounds activated bilaterally the superior temporal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, and right precentral cortex. Repetitions suppression effects were measured within bilateral early-stage auditory areas in the lateral portion of the Heschl's gyrus and posterior superior temporal plane. Left lateral early-stages areas showed significant effects for position and change, interactions Category x Initial Position and Category x Change in Position, while right lateral areas showed main effect of category and interaction Category x Change in Position. The combined evidence from our study and from previous studies speaks in favour of a position-linked representation of sound objects, which is independent from semantic encoding within the ventral stream and from spatial encoding within the dorsal stream. We argue for a third auditory stream, which has its origin in lateral belt areas and tracks sound objects across space.
Testing the dual-pathway model for auditory processing in human cortex
2016, NeuroImage
Analogous to the visual system, auditory information has been proposed to be processed in two largely segregated streams: an anteroventral (“what”) pathway mainly subserving sound identification and a posterodorsal (“where”) stream mainly subserving sound localization. Despite the popularity of this assumption, the degree of separation of spatial and non-spatial auditory information processing in cortex is still under discussion. In the present study, a statistical approach was implemented to investigate potential behavioral dissociations for spatial and non-spatial auditory processing in stroke patients, and voxel-wise lesion analyses were used to uncover their neural correlates. The results generally provided support for anatomically and functionally segregated auditory networks. However, some degree of anatomo-functional overlap between “what” and “where” aspects of processing was found in the superior pars opercularis of right inferior frontal gyrus (Brodmann area 44), suggesting the potential existence of a shared target area of both auditory streams in this region. Moreover, beyond the typically defined posterodorsal stream (i.e., posterior superior temporal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, and superior frontal sulcus), occipital lesions were found to be associated with sound localization deficits. These results, indicating anatomically and functionally complex cortical networks for spatial and non-spatial auditory processing, are roughly consistent with the dual-pathway model of auditory processing in its original form, but argue for the need to refine and extend this widely accepted hypothesis.
Auditory Spatial Deficits in the Early Stage of Ischemic Cerebral Stroke
2015, Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases
Clinical research, together with computed tomography/magnetic resonance imaging findings, proves that ischemic stroke (IS) that damages auditory pathways can cause hearing loss and impairment of higher auditory processes such as sound localization. The goal of the study was to find possible correlations between the IS risk factors, ischemic lesion volume and localization, neurologic status, and the sound localization capability in acute IS patients.
We consecutively enrolled 61 IS patients into the study. The control group consisted of 60 healthy volunteers. All neuro-otological evaluations were performed up to 30 days from the incidence of stroke. All the subjects underwent the horizontal minimum audible angle test (HMAAT) and standard tonal and speech audiometric assessments.
HMMAT results were significantly worse in the IS patients and were present in 82.0% of the patients. There were more patients with unilateral disturbances than with bilateral ones (54.1% versus 27.9%). It was the characteristics of the ischemic lesions that correlated strongly with the sound localization deterioration, that is, their bilateral (the 90° azimuth, P = .018; the 180°, P = .002), multiple (the 45°, P = .020; the 180°, P = .007; the 225°, P = .047), and lacunar character (the 90°, P = .015; the 225°, P = .042). Differences in the types of HMAAT results were significant for lesions in the frontal and the temporal lobe (P = .018 and P = .040). In addition, worse sound localization ability was more common in patients with poor speech discrimination and the bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. We have not found statistically significant correlations for other analyzed factors such as the cortical/subcortical character of the lesions, the patients' neurologic status, and cerebrovascular risk factors.
Sound localization impairment is common in IS patients and it is the multiple, bilateral, and lacunar character of the ischemic lesions that seems to be strongly positively correlated with the disturbance of the sound localization ability.
Auditory neglect and related disorders
2015, Handbook of Clinical Neurology
Citation Excerpt :
Disturbance of auditory spatial perception is not always as prominent as in alloacusis. A number of tests (Fig. 31.6) have been used to reveal more subtle deficits of auditory lateralization using free-field stimulation (Ruff et al., 1981; Vallar et al., 1995; Zatorre and Penhune, 2001) or headphones (Bisiach et al., 1984; Kerkhoff et al., 1999; Tanaka et al., 1999; Clarke et al., 2000; Pavani et al., 2001; Zimmer et al., 2003). In one such study, listeners were required to indicate the position from where they perceived lateralized sounds (Ruff et al., 1981; Bisiach et al., 1984; Clarke et al., 2000; Bellmann et al., 2001; Zatorre and Penhune, 2001; Zimmer et al., 2003; Spierer et al., 2009; Gutschalk et al., 2012).
Neglect is a neurologic disorder, typically associated with lesions of the right hemisphere, in which patients are biased towards their ipsilesional – usually right – side of space while awareness for their contralesional – usually left – side is reduced or absent. Neglect is a multimodal disorder that often includes deficits in the auditory domain. Classically, auditory extinction, in which left-sided sounds that are correctly perceived in isolation are not detected in the presence of synchronous right-sided stimulation, has been considered the primary sign of auditory neglect. However, auditory extinction can also be observed after unilateral auditory cortex lesions and is thus not specific for neglect. Recent research has shown that patients with neglect are also impaired in maintaining sustained attention, on both sides, a fact that is reflected by an impairment of auditory target detection in continuous stimulation conditions. Perhaps the most impressive auditory symptom in full-blown neglect is alloacusis, in which patients mislocalize left-sided sound sources to their right, although even patients with less severe neglect still often show disturbance of auditory spatial perception, most commonly a lateralization bias towards the right. We discuss how these various disorders may be explained by a single model of neglect and review emerging interventions for patient rehabilitation.

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^☆: This paper was presented in part to the International Neuropsychological Society, February 1980, San Francisco, California, U.S.A.

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Auditory spatial deficits in the personal and extrapersonal frames of reference due to cortical lesions☆

Abstract

Résumé

Zusammenfassung

Expl. Neurol.

Neuropsychologia

Correlates of impaired orientation in personal and extrapersonal space

Brain

Dissociation of spatial discrimination deficits following frontal and parietal lesions in monkeys

J. comp. physiol. Psychol.

The role of frontal and parietal cortex in cognitive processing: Tests of spatial and sequence functions

Brain

A neural map of auditory space in the owl

Science

A clinical test for sound localization and its application

Neurology

Clinical significance of impairment of sound localization

Neurology