Cortical Dynamics of Auditory Attention

描述（由申请人提供）：为了在拥挤的环境中动态地跟随不同的对话，我们必须不断地将注意力集中在感兴趣的听觉信号上，并将来自其他来源的声音隔离开来。听力正常的听众可以无缝地完成这项任务，但听力受损的听众，人工耳蜗使用者和患有（中枢）听觉处理障碍的个人经常发现在这种日常声学环境中交流具有挑战性。这项研究的长期目标是描述与听觉注意的不同方面相关的皮层动力学特征，并将这些大脑信号整合到下一代助听器中，以帮助解释听者的注意力集中。目前的项目是建立在这样的假设上的：有分布的皮层区域协调自上而下和自下而上的听觉注意，并且这些区域在功能上与听觉感觉区域的耦合取决于手头的任务。与听觉注意相关的大脑动力学目前还没有得到很好的理解，因此，实现我们长期目标的必要的第一步是研究正常听力听众的注意网络。这个项目的具体目标是找出两者之间的差异

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In order to dynamically follow different conversations in a crowded environment, we must constantly direct attention to the auditory signal of interest and segregate sounds that originated from other sources. Normal-hearing listeners can achieve this task seamlessly, but hearing-impaired listeners, cochlear implant users, and individuals with (central) auditory processing disorders often find communicating in this everyday acoustic environment challenging. The long-term objective of this research is to characterize the cortical dynamics associated with different aspects of auditory attention and to incorporate these brain signals in a next-generation hearing assistive device that helps account for the listener's attentional focus. The current project is built on the hypothesis that there are distributed corticl regions that coordinate top-down and bottom-up auditory attention, and that these regions are functionally coupled to the auditory sensory areas differently depending on the task at hand. The brain dynamics associated with auditory attention are currently not well understood, and thus a necessary first step to achieve our long-term objective is to study the attentional network in normal-hearing listeners. The specific aims of this project seek to identify differences between the cortical regions recruited for attention based on spatial and non-spatial features (Aim 1), as well as how the rest of the cortex compensates when the peripheral auditory signal is degraded by simulating the reduction in spectrotemporal acuity experienced by listeners with hearing impairments and cochlear implant users (Aim 2). Furthermore, we propose to take a systems-level approach and investigate how other cortical regions communicate with the auditory sensory areas in order to coordinate switching and maintenance of attention in a crowded acoustical scene (Aim 3). Our proposal emphasizes designing behavioral paradigms that bridge the gap between psychoacoustics and neuroimaging research, thereby addressing how different regions of the cortex act in concert to aid us in communicating in everyday settings.