The human auditory brainstem response to running speech reveals a subcortical mechanism for selective attention
The human auditory brainstem response to running speech reveals a subcortical mechanism for selective attention
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DOI：
10.7554/elife.27203
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发表时间：
2017-10-10
期刊：
影响因子：
7.7
通讯作者：
Reichenbach, Tobias
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Forte, Antonio Elia;Etard, Octave;Reichenbach, Tobias
人类擅长在背景噪音中有选择地听目标说话者说话，比如竞争的声音。虽然听觉皮质中的语音编码是由选择性注意调节的，但这种调节是否已经在皮质下听觉结构中发生仍然存在争议。尤其是，研究人类脑干对注意力的贡献，一直受到脑干反应微小幅度的阻碍。它的测量通常需要大量重复相同的短声刺激，这可能会导致注意力丧失和神经适应。在这里，我们开发了一种数学方法来测量听觉脑干对跑步语音的反应，这是一种不重复的声学刺激，具有很高的生态有效性。我们使用这种方法来评估当受试者听两个相互竞争的说话者之一时脑干的活动，并表明脑干反应一直受到注意力的调节。
Humans excel at selectively listening to a target speaker in background noise such as competing voices. While the encoding of speech in the auditory cortex is modulated by selective attention, it remains debated whether such modulation occurs already in subcortical auditory structures. Investigating the contribution of the human brainstem to attention has, in particular, been hindered by the tiny amplitude of the brainstem response. Its measurement normally requires a large number of repetitions of the same short sound stimuli, which may lead to a loss of attention and to neural adaptation. Here we develop a mathematical method to measure the auditory brainstem response to running speech, an acoustic stimulus that does not repeat and that has a high ecological validity. We employ this method to assess the brainstem's activity when a subject listens to one of two competing speakers, and show that the brainstem response is consistently modulated by attention.