Outline 2.1 The Auditory What (“Ventral”) Stream
- Definition
- Funktion
- lateralization differences
- Anatomie
- Rolls Group 1
To-Do’s
- check wording
- check soruces
2.1 The Auditory What (“Ventral”) Stream
The auditory what stream, also known as the ventral pathway, represents the more conceptually stable part of the dual-stream architecture, mostly tasked with transformation from auditory signals to semantic representations. While the dorsal counterpart remains debatable, the ventral stream’s role is mapping sounds to meaning remains widely accepted as fundamental.
2.1.1 Functional Definition
The primary objective is auditory object identification - the process of isolation of “what” is being heard (e.g. specific words, a dog’s bark or a piano) from a chaotic acoustic environment.
It operates as a sound-to-meaning starting with feature-extraction in the primary auditory cortex which responds well to pure tones (Rauschecker & Afsahi (2023) - Journal of Comparative Neurology).
2.1.2 Anatomical Trajectory
The what-stream is defined as the connection from the core belt regions forming a loop through the temporal lobe following the Superior Temoral Sulcus (STS) and Middle Temporal Gyrus (MTG), going ventrally to the prefrontal cortex, which coins the what-pathway also the name “the ateroventral pathway”. It is defined by its connection to the Broca’s areas 44, 45 and 47l in the prefrontal cortex.