NEURAL REPRESENTATION OF ACOUSTIC ELEMENTS OF SPEECH

听觉学习障碍和注意力缺陷障碍是 儿童最常见的疾病 最近的估计是 美国5%-9%的学龄儿童 学习障碍，另外3%-5%的学龄儿童 儿童被诊断患有注意力缺陷障碍。 的 这个多年项目的重点是检查假设， 无法处理语音的某些基本声学参数是一种 学习和注意力问题的重要因素 这些孩子 行为和电生理技术将 用于调查心理物理能力，并描绘 声学成分的潜在中枢听觉神经表征 的演讲。 与此同时，神经生理反应， 将在动物模型中检查声学元件， 重要的是因为表面记录的神经生理反应 在人类受试者中测量，不能直接追溯到他们的 解剖学来源 这个项目的最终目标是了解 正常人言语知觉的神经生理学基础， 残疾儿童，并制定更好的诊断和 听觉障碍患者的康复治疗方法 学习障碍。 具体地，已知一些声学语音线索更好地 比其他人，特别是儿童的认知基础 学习障碍。 这个项目将着眼于行为 快速变化的频谱-时间线索的辨别， 对有听力障碍的孩子来说是特别困难的。 在同一 时间，神经生理反应引起的那些同样重要的 将测量声学线索。 然后这些神经生理学的测量 将与听力，学习和学术成就有关， 正常和受损儿童。 对于潜在的临床应用，技术 将被开发用于测量和客观分析 个体受试者的神经生理反应。 同时，动物模型将用于确定 语音参数的神经生理编码 沿着听觉丘脑-皮层通路进行沿着研究，从而 提供了一个病理学的指标， 听觉学习障碍。 具体而言，本项目将（1） 表征从多个位置记录的诱发电位 （硬膜外表面，听觉的主要和非主要区域） 丘脑和皮层）的实验声学元件，（2） 研究每个丘脑-皮质区域对 通过观察药理学作用的总体反应 特定解剖区域的失活，以及（3）比较 每个区域对左右耳刺激的反应。

Auditory learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders are among the most common disorders found in children. Recent estimates are that 5-9 percent of school-age children in the United States have learning disabilities and that an additional 3-5 percent of school-age children have been diagnosed with an attention deficit disorder. The focus of this multi-year project is to examine the hypothesis that an inability to process certain basic acoustic parameters of speech is a significant contributing factor to learning and attention problems in these children. Behavioral and electrophysiologic techniques will be used to investigate psychophysical abilities and to delineate the underlying central auditory neural representation of acoustic elements of speech. At the same time, neurophysiologic responses to the same acoustic elements will be examined in an animal model, which is important because the surface-recorded neurophysiologic responses measured in human subjects cannot be traced directly to their anatomical sources. The ultimate goal of this project is to understand the neurophysiologic bases of speech perception in normal and impaired children, and to develop improved diagnostic and rehabilitative methods of the management of individuals with auditory learning disabilities. Specifically, it is known that some acoustic speech cues are better perceived than others, particularly by children with auditory-based learning disabilities. This project will look at the behavioral discrimination of rapidly changing spectro-temporal cues, which appear to be especially difficult for impaired children to hear. At the same time, neurophysiologic responses elicited by those same important acoustic cues will be measured. Then these neurophysiologic measures will be related to listening, learning, and academic achievement in normal and impaired children. For potential clinical use, techniques will be developed for measurment and objective analysis of neurophysiologic responses in individual subjects. Concurrently, an animal model will serve to determine the neurophysiologic encoding of the acoustic speech parameters under investigation along the auditory thalamo-cortical pathway, thereby providing an indicator of the pathology that may underlie certain auditory learning disabilities. Specifically, this project will (1) characterize evoked potentials recorded from several locations (epidural surface, primary and non-primary regions of the auditory thalamus and cortex) to the experimental acoustic elements, (2) investigate the contribution of each thalamo-cortical region to the aggregate response by observing the effects of pharmacologic inactivation of specific anatomical regions, and (3) compare the responses in each region to right and left ear stimulation.