Anatomical Organization of the Auditory Cortex

The identification of areas that contribute to auditory processing in the human cerebral cortex has been the subject of sporadic investigation for more than one century. Several anatomical schemas have been advanced, but a standard model has not been adopted by researchers in the field. Most often, the results of functional imaging or electrophysiological studies involving auditory cortex are related to the cytoarchitectonic map of Brodmann (1909). Though useful as a guide and point of reference, this map has never been validated and appears to be incomplete. In recent years, renewed interest in the organization of auditory cortex has fostered numerous comparative studies in humans, nonhuman primates, and other mammalian species. From these efforts, common features of structural and functional organization have begun to emerge from which a working model of human auditory cortex can be derived. The results of those studies and the rudiments of the model are reviewed in this manuscript.