1 Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, 3801 University Street, Montreal, QC H3A 2B4, Canada.
2 International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), 90 Vincent-d'Indy Avenue, Outremont, QC H2V 2S9, Canada.
3 Centre for Research in Brain, Language and Music (CRBLM), 3640 de la Montagne Street, Montreal, QC H3G 2A8, Canada.
4 Department of Psychology, Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, QCH4B 1R6, Canada.
5 Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, 2240 Campus Drive, Evanston, 60208 IL, USA.

Perception integrates both sensory inputs and internal models of the environment. In the auditory domain, predictions play a critical role because of the temporal nature of sounds. However, the precise contribution of cortical and subcortical structures in these processes and their interaction remain unclear. It is also unclear whether these brain interactions are specific to abstract rules or if they also underlie the predictive coding of local features. We used high-field 7T functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate interactions between cortical and subcortical areas during auditory predictive processing. Volunteers listened to tone sequences in an oddball paradigm where the predictability of the deviant was manipulated. Perturbations in periodicity were also introduced to test the specificity of the response. Results indicate that both cortical and subcortical auditory structures encode high-order predictive dynamics, with the effect of predictability being strongest in the auditory cortex. These predictive dynamics were best explained by modeling a top-down information flow, in contrast to unpredicted responses. No error signals were observed to deviations of periodicity, suggesting that these responses are specific to abstract rule violations. Our results support the idea that the high-order predictive dynamics observed in subcortical areas propagate from the auditory cortex.