The Neural Basis of Perceptually-Relevant Auditory Modulations in Humans

人类感知相关听觉调节的神经基础

• 批准号: 8033724
• 负责人: Jonathan Z. Simon
• 金额: $ 23.54万
• 依托单位: UNIV OF MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-03-01 至 2013-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8033724
• 关键词: Acoustics; Address; Affect; Aging; Animal Model; Attention; Auditory; Auditory area; Brain; Clinical; Cochlear Implants; Code; Collaborations; Complex; Critiques; Databases; Distant; Electromagnetics; Ferrets; Frequencies; Goals; Head; Human; Impaired cognition; Individual; Investigation; Journals; Language Development Disorders; Least-Squares Analysis; Link; Magnetoencephalography; Measures; Methods; Nature; Neurons; Neuropathy; Neurosciences; Noise; Paper; Peer Review; Perception; Phase; Physiological; Population; Positioning Attribute; Principal Investigator; Procedures; Process; Psychophysiology; Publications; Records; Relative (related person); Research; Research Design; Research Methodology; Research Personnel; Residual state; Resolution; Scheme; Side; Signal Transduction; Source; Speech; Speech Intelligibility; Speed; Stimulus; Stream; Students; Technical Expertise; Techniques; Testing; Time; Weight; Work; base; cost; design; extracellular; follow-up; hearing impairment; human subject; improved; neuromechanism; neurophysiology; novel; peer; programs; public health relevance; relating to nervous system; research study; response; sensor; sound; speech processing; tool

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): One of the goals of auditory neuroscience is to understand how speech and other natural sounds are analyzed and encoded in the human auditory cortex. One major finding is that perception and speech processing are crucially affected by temporal modulations in the acoustic signal. However, identifying in humans the physiological mechanisms that underlie the analysis of perceptually-relevant temporal modulations presents a considerable technical challenge. Extracellular recording methods are ideal for the investigation of time-based neural coding mechanisms, but they are typically limited to a single auditory area and cannot be generally used in human subjects. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a non-invasive tool, suitable for use in humans that records high-speed neural signals from the entire brain, though at the cost of significantly coarser spatial resolution. Fortunately, recent work has shown that investigations of the neural coding of acoustic modulations can indeed be conducted using MEG with human subjects. Thus MEG and extracellular recording can both be employed, in complementary ways, to investigate how temporal modulations are encoded by auditory cortex. The goal of this proposed research program is to understand how these acoustic modulations, the building blocks of speech and other natural sounds are encoded in auditory cortex. The acoustic modulations whose encoding is investigated are either embedded in a noisy background, as in a natural auditory scene, or modulated in both frequency and amplitude, independently and simultaneously, as in speech. The research program employs parallel sets of experiments: one set using MEG to record from human auditory cortex, and the other using extracellular recording methods in an animal model. With recordings from individual neurons, from the extracellular local field potential, and from the whole cortex, it may be possible to unify the different schemes used to neurally encode acoustic modulations, up and down the neural hierarchy. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Recent research suggests that a variety of hearing and cognitive impairments result from problems in temporal processing of sounds (e.g. developmental language disorders, and hearing impairment due to aging, auditory neuropathy, or cochlear implants). The present work will provide novel experimental approaches, as well as a rich empirical database on cortical temporal processing in normal human subjects, that can then be used in clinical settings.

描述（由申请人提供）：听觉神经科学的目标之一是了解人类听觉皮层如何分析和编码语音和其他自然声音。一项重大发现是，感知和语音处理受到声学信号中的时间调制的严重影响。然而，识别人类感知相关时间调制分析背后的生理机制提出了相当大的技术挑战。细胞外记录方法非常适合研究基于时间的神经编码机制，但它们通常仅限于单个听觉区域，并且不能普遍用于人类受试者。脑磁图 (MEG) 是一种非侵入性工具，适用于人类，可记录整个大脑的高速神经信号，但代价是空间分辨率显着降低。幸运的是，最近的工作表明，确实可以使用 MEG 对人类受试者进行声学调制神经编码的研究。因此，MEG 和细胞外记录都可以以互补的方式用于研究听觉皮层如何编码时间调制。该研究计划的目标是了解这些声学调制、语音和其他自然声音的构建模块是如何在听觉皮层中编码的。研究编码的声学调制要么嵌入噪声背景中，如在自然听觉场景中，要么独立且同时地在频率和幅度上进行调制，如在语音中。该研究项目采用了平行实验：一组使用脑磁图从人类听觉皮层进行记录，另一组在动物模型中使用细胞外记录方法。通过来自单个神经元、细胞外局部场电位和整个皮层的记录，有可能统一用于对神经层次上的声学调制进行神经编码的不同方案。 公共健康相关性：最近的研究表明，各种听力和认知障碍是由声音的时间处理问题引起的（例如发育性语言障碍，以及由于衰老、听觉神经病变或人工耳蜗植入引起的听力障碍）。目前的工作将提供新颖的实验方法，以及关于正常人类受试者皮质时间处理的丰富经验数据库，然后可用于临床环境。