Neuromagnetic studies of human auditory cortex function and reorganization.

Much of our present understanding of sensory processing by the human brain is obtained from studies of patients with sensory impairments. Past auditory studies have focused strongly on the peripheral mechanisms of hearing disorders, and have led to an overuse of stimuli that are good for testing the transfer functions of simple acoustic features but are not suitable for understanding the perception of complex auditory stimuli or stimulus sequences. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a non-invasive method for studying how the human brain processes and stores auditory information. The long-term groundwork in building up the basic understanding of cortical dynamics during various "simple" stimulations now allows the use of more complex, real-life-like stimuli, and clinical applications.