Auditory cortical representation of music favours the perceived beat

Previous research has shown that musical beat perception is a surprisingly complex phenomenon involving widespread neural coordination across higher-order sensory, motor, and cognitive areas. However, the question of how low-level auditory processing must necessarily shape these dynamics, and therefore perception, is not well understood. Here, we present evidence that the auditory cortical representation of music, even in the absence of motor or top-down activations, already favors the beat that will be perceived. Extracellular firing rates in the rat auditory cortex were recorded in response to twenty musical excerpts diverse in tempo and genre, for which musical beat perception had been characterised by the tapping behaviour of 40 human listeners. We found that firing rates in the rat auditory cortex were on average higher on the beat than off the beat. This “neural emphasis” distinguished the beat that was perceived from other possible interpretations of the beat, was predictive of t...既往研究表明，音乐节拍感知是一种极为复杂的现象，涉及高阶感觉、运动与认知脑区广泛的神经协同活动。然而，关于低级听觉加工如何必然塑造这些神经动态进而影响感知的问题，目前仍未得到充分阐释。本研究提供证据表明，即便不存在运动或自上而下的激活，音乐的听觉皮层表征已然偏向于最终被感知到的节拍。我们以20首节奏与曲风各异的音乐片段为刺激，记录了大鼠听觉皮层的细胞外放电频率；这些片段的音乐节拍感知特性已通过40名人类听众的敲击行为得到表征。研究发现，大鼠听觉皮层的放电频率在节拍位置上平均高于非节拍位置。这种“神经强化效应”能够将被感知到的节拍与其他可能的节拍解读区分开来，且可预测……