Fig. 1

Schematic of key human auditory and motor brain regions involved in auditory beat-based processing. White circles or ovals with labels show general location of these areas as revealed by fMRI on a standard MRI model of the human brain. Premotor regions include supplementary motor area and pre-supplementary motor area (SMA and pre-SMA) and dorsal premotor cortex (PMC). The putamen is a region of the basal ganglia involved in motor control and is linked to premotor regions via a cortico-basal-ganglia-thalamic loop [66]. Current evidence suggests that basal ganglia regions play a more central role in beat-based timing than do cerebellar regions, which may be more important for single-interval timing [67, 68]. Note that some areas involved in beat processing, such as regions of the inferior parietal lobe, are not shown. For a recent review and metanalysis of neuroimaging studies of beat processing, see [69]