Sound localization in callosal agenesis and early callosotomy subjects: brain reorganization and/or compensatory strategies

In order to evaluate the callosal involvement in sound localization, the present study examined the response accuracy of acallosal and early callosotomized subjects to monaural and binaural auditory targets presented in three-dimensional space. In these subjects, bilateral localization cues, such as interaural time and level differences, are integrated at the cortical and subcortical levels without the additional support of the callosal commissure. Because acallosal and early-callosotomized subjects have developed with this reduced source of binaural activation of cortical cells, they might have perfected their ability to use monaural sound localization cues. This hypothesis was tested by assessing localization performance under both binaural and monaural listening conditions. Five subjects with callosal agenesis, one callosotomized subject operated early in life and 19 control subjects were asked to localize broad-band noise bursts (BBNBs) of fixed intensity in the horizontal plane in an anechoic chamber. BBNBs were delivered through randomly selected loudspeakers. Two conditions were tested: (i) localization of a stationary sound source; and (ii) localization of a moving sound source. Listeners had to report the apparent stimulus location by pointing to its perceived position on a graduated perimeter. The results indicated that the acallosal subjects were less accurate than controls, but only in the binaural moving sound condition. More interestingly, in the monaural testing conditions, some of the acallosal subjects and the early-callosotomized subject performed significantly better than control subjects. This suggests that, because of the absence of the corpus callosum, these subjects compensate for their reduced access to cortically determined binaural cues by making more efficient use of monaural cues.