Neural substrates for recognition of familiar voices: a PET study

Identification of familiar people is essential in our social life. We can identify familiar people by hearing their voices as well as by viewing their faces. By measuring regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) by positron emission tomography (PET), we identified neural substrates for the recognition of...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuropsychologia 2001-01, Vol.39 (10), p.1047-1054
Main Authors: Nakamura, Katsuki, Kawashima, Ryuta, Sugiura, Motoaki, Kato, Takashi, Nakamura, Akinori, Hatano, Kentaro, Nagumo, Sumiharu, Kubota, Kisou, Fukuda, Hiroshi, Ito, Kengo, Kojima, Shozo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Anatomical correlates of behavior
Behavioral psychophysiology
Biological and medical sciences
Brain - blood supply
Brain - diagnostic imaging
Brain Mapping
Dominance, Cerebral - physiology
Entorhinal Cortex - blood supply
Entorhinal Cortex - diagnostic imaging
Female
Frontal Lobe - blood supply
Frontal Lobe - diagnostic imaging
Frontal pole
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Imaging, Three-Dimensional
Male
Mental Recall - physiology
PET
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Recognition
Regional Blood Flow - physiology
Speech Acoustics
Speech Perception - physiology
Temporal Lobe - blood supply
Temporal Lobe - diagnostic imaging
Temporal pole
Tomography, Emission-Computed
Voice
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Identification of familiar people is essential in our social life. We can identify familiar people by hearing their voices as well as by viewing their faces. By measuring regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) by positron emission tomography (PET), we identified neural substrates for the recognition of familiar voices. The brain activity during discrimination of voices of the subjects' associates and friends from those of unfamiliar people was compared with that during an analogous discrimination of their own voice from unfamiliar voices as well as during vowel discrimination. The left frontal pole, right temporal pole, right entorhinal cortex, and left precuneus were activated to a greater extent during discrimination of familiar voice than during control discriminations, suggesting that these brain regions are involved in the recognition of familiar voices. Furthermore, the adjusted values of rCBF in the left frontal pole and right temporal pole correlated with the number of subjects' correct identification of familiar voices. The present results suggest that these two regions are coactively associated with matching the currently heard voice to familiar voices in one's memory.
ISSN:0028-3932
1873-3514
DOI:10.1016/S0028-3932(01)00037-9