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Investigation into the perception of "inaudible" Ultrasound

17.05.2023

In a collaboration of PTB departments 1.6 and 8.1 with the Simone Kühne's group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin investigate, it was investigated on a group of volunteers whether and, if so, how the human brain reacts to ultrasound stimuli when these are offered at sound levels below the individual hearing threshold. By functional MRI measurements it was found that a certain area of the brain, the inferior frontal gyrus, is only affected by "inaudible" but not by "audible" ultrasound during a concentration task. The study has now been published in the journal PLoS ONE (Weichenberger M et al., Air-conducted ultrasound below the hearing threshold elicits functional changes in the cognitive control network. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277727).

Contact:

Christian Koch (1.6), E-Mail: 📧 Christian.Koch(at)ptb.de
Rüdiger Brühl (8.1), E-Mail: 📧 Ruediger.Bruehl(at)ptb.de