An event-related fMRI study of auditory motion perception: No evidence for a specialized cortical system

The existence of a specialized human cortical area for the processing of auditory motion is still a matter of debate. Initial functional imaging studies identified the planum temporale as being motion selective. Recent data contrasting spatially varying stationary stimuli with moving stimuli found no difference in the amount of activation between the two types of stimuli in the planum temporale. The present study re-examines this issue using an event-related paradigm. Ten subjects were scanned while listening to pairs of stimuli that were either both moving or both stationary. Consistent with the aforementioned study, we found no difference in the activation levels in the planum temporale when comparing motion and stationary conditions.