Functional and structural characterization of human auditory cortex

A comprehensive understanding of auditory cortical processing is a fundamental goal of cognitive and systems neuroscience, as it holds the key both to understanding mechanisms that underpin auditory perception and cognition, as well as the development of more effective treatments for common auditory deficits such as hearing loss and deafness. While macroanatomical information, such as the location of gyri and sulci, has been shown to be highly predictive of the location of primary visual cortex (V1), it has been insufficient for parcellating primary auditory region A1. Our work uses cutting-edge ultra-high-field (7T) neuroimaging techniques to acquire anatomical data, both cortically and subcortically, at an unprecedentedly high resolution (0.35 mm 3 ), and combines these data with an array of functional measures to develop a comprehensive structure-function characterization of primary auditory regions in humans.