[3][4] The auditory cortex takes part in the spectrotemporal, meaning involving time and frequency, analysis of the inputs passed on from the ear.

[7][8] Like many areas in the neocortex, the functional properties of the adult primary auditory cortex (A1) are highly dependent on the sounds encountered early in life.

[citation needed] The auditory cortex forms groupings based on fundamentals; in music, for example, this would include harmony, timing, and pitch.

Studies in the marmoset monkey have shown that pitch-selective neurons are located in a cortical region near the anterolateral border of the primary auditory cortex.

The primary auditory cortex receives direct input from the medial geniculate nucleus of the thalamus and thus is thought to identify the fundamental elements of music, such as pitch and loudness.

An evoked response study of congenitally deaf kittens used local field potentials to measure cortical plasticity in the auditory cortex.

The field potentials measured for artificially stimulated CDC were eventually much stronger than that of a normal hearing cat.

[24] This finding accords with a study by Eckart Altenmuller, in which it was observed that students who received musical instruction had greater cortical activation than those who did not.

When subjects are exposed to three or four cycles of a 40 hertz click, an abnormal spike appears in the EEG data, which is not present for other stimuli.

[26] Gamma band activation (25 to 100 Hz) has been shown to be present during the perception of sensory events and the process of recognition.

In a 2000 study by Kneif and colleagues, subjects were presented with eight musical notes to well-known tunes, such as Yankee Doodle and Frère Jacques.

Randomly, the sixth and seventh notes were omitted and an electroencephalogram, as well as a magnetoencephalogram were each employed to measure the neural results.

Specifically, the presence of gamma waves, induced by the auditory task at hand, were measured from the temples of the subjects.

The evoked responses during the sixth and seventh omitted notes are assumed to be imagined, and were characteristically different, especially in the right hemisphere.

RMPFC is a subsection of the medial prefrontal cortex, which projects to many diverse areas including the amygdala, and is thought to aid in the inhibition of negative emotion.

[30] Another study has suggested that people who experience 'chills' while listening to music have a higher volume of fibres connecting their auditory cortex to areas associated with emotional processing.

[32] Due to the contralateral nature of the auditory system, the right ear is connected to Wernicke's area, located within the posterior section of the superior temporal gyrus in the left cerebral hemisphere.