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Auditory Cortex

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology
  • 25 Accesses

Definition

That portion of the cerebral cortex devoted exclusively to the processing of input from the medial geniculate nuclei (auditory information).

Current Knowledge

Located in the superior portion of the temporal lobe of each hemisphere, the auditory cortex consists of both primary (idiotypic) and secondary (unimodal homotypic) cortices. The former is located in the temporal operculum (Brodmann’s area 41 and part of 42) and is referred to as Heschl’s gyrus. The primary auditory cortex receives direct input from the medial geniculate nuclei of the thalamus, which it is thought to process auditory input at a very basic level with little, if any, distinction between the right and left hemispheres. The secondary auditory cortex (primarily Brodmann’s area 22) surrounds the primary cortex and, for the most part, is located in the lateral portion of the superior temporal gyrus. The posterior portion of this secondary cortex in the left hemisphere constitutes Wernicke’s area. These...

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Correspondence to John E. Mendoza .

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Mendoza, J.E. (2018). Auditory Cortex. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_710

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