Physiological Correlates and Neural Mechanisms of Vocal Communication

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1. Two studies begun this year utilize the noninvasive magnetic resonance imaging methodology (MRI) to examine structural details of the living brain. One study, in collaboration with the LDRR, involves the high-resolution imaging on the brain of adult common marmosets, as part of the construction of a brain atlas for this species. A second study, in collaboration with investigators at the Medical University of South Carolina, has used functional MRI (fMRI) to map activity changes in the brains of mothers listening to infant cries. This study is still in progress, but initial results indicate that the anterior cingulate gyrus and adjacent orbital frontal cortex are differentially activated, when compared to control stimuli consisting of noise bursts with similar temporal structure to the infant cry stimuli. 2. Analysis of the vocal behavior of infant rhesus macaques following neonatal ablation of the infero-temporal cortex (area TE) showed a number of abnormalities in the acoustic structure of their calls. Involvement of a neocortical structure in primate phonation has not previously been reported.