The neuronal representation of pitch in primate auditory cortex

TLDR: The existence of neurons in the auditory cortex of marmoset monkeys that respond to both pure tones and missing fundamental harmonic complex sounds with the same f0, providing a neural correlate for pitch constancy are shown.

Abstract: Pitch perception plays a critical role in identifying and segregating auditory objects 1 , especially in the context of music and speech. The perception of pitch is not unique to humans and has been experimentally demonstrated in several animal species 2,3 . Pitch is the subjective attribute of a sound’s fundamental frequency (f0), that is determined by both the temporal regularity and average repetition rate of its acoustic waveform. Spectrally dissimilar sounds can have the same pitch if they share a common f0. Even when the acoustic energy at f0 is removed (“missing fundamental”) the same pitch is still perceived 1 . Despite its importance for hearing, how pitch is represented in the cerebral cortex remains unknown. Here we show the existence of neurons in the auditory cortex of marmoset monkeys that respond to both pure tones and missing fundamental harmonic complex sounds (MFs) with the same f0, providing a neural correlate for pitch constancy 1 . These pitchselective neurons are located in a restricted low-frequency cortical region near the anterolateral border of primary auditory cortex (AI), consistent with the location of a pitch-selective area identified in recent human imaging studies 4,5 .