HUMAN AUDITORY CORTEX PHYSIOLOGY

语音是我们听到的最重要的声音，但我们对这些刺激是如何在人类大脑皮层中表现出来的知之甚少。我们的研究目标是了解参与声音处理的人类大脑皮层区域的功能组织和联系，并研究语音刺激如何在这些区域中表现出来。这些实验包括直接电生理记录和电刺激清醒的人类受试者的大脑皮层进行临床评估的顽固性癫痫。在我们的研究过程中，我们计划：1)识别参与声音处理的颞/顶叶/额叶脑区，2)检查它们的功能相互联系，3)研究语音在这些皮质区域中的表现方式，以及4)研究涉及听觉-视觉语音刺激双峰整合的皮质过程。这些目标将由一个多学科小组实现，使用最先进的研究方法，单独或结合，以收集过去无法获得的人体生理和解剖数据的补充集。我们相信了解正常听觉系统的基本结构和功能对于理解听力、言语和语言各方面损伤的机制至关重要。

Speech sounds are the most important sounds that we hear, yet little is known about how these stimuli are represented within human cerebral cortex. The goal of our research is to understand the functional organizations and connections of those areas of human cerebral cortex that are engaged in sound processing and examine how speech sound stimuli are represented within these regions. These experiments involve direct electrophysiological recording from and electrical stimulation of the cerebral cortex of awake human subjects undergoing clinical evaluation of intractable epilepsy. In the course of our investigations we plan to: 1) identify temporal/parietal/frontal brain regions engaged in sound processing, 2) examine their functional interconnections, 3) study the manner in which speech sounds are represented within these cortical regions, and 4) investigate the cortical processes involved in the bimodal integration of auditory-visual speech stimuli. These objectives will be pursued by a multidisciplinary team using state-of-the-art research methods, alone and in combination, to gather complementary sets of human physiological and anatomical data that could not be obtained in the past. We pursue these objectives believing that knowledge of the fundamental structure and function of the normal auditory system is essential to understanding mechanisms that underly impairment of all aspects of hearing, speech, and language.