Neurophysiology of robust speech perception in human superior temporal gyrus

人类颞上回稳健言语感知的神经生理学

• 批准号: 9231432
• 负责人: Nima MESGARANI
• 金额: $ 39.64万
• 依托单位: COLUMBIA UNIV NEW YORK MORNINGSIDE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-03-01 至 2020-02-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9231432
• 关键词: Acoustics; Address; Aphasia; Area; Attention; Brain; Central Auditory Diseases; Characteristics; Code; Cognitive; Communication impairment; Complex; Comprehension; Computer Simulation; Crowding; Cues; Custom; Discipline; Disease; Dyslexia; Electrodes; Engineering; Environment; Epilepsy; Feedback; Hearing; Human; Impairment; Implant; Individual; Intention; Joints; Language Development; Link; Literature; Machine Learning; Measures; Mediating; Methods; Modeling; Nature; Neurobiology; Neurologist; Neurons; Operative Surgical Procedures; Patients; Perception; Peripheral; Population; Process; Property; Prosthesis; Research; Research Personnel; Resolution; Role; Science; Sensory; Signal Transduction; Site; Specificity; Speech; Speech Pathology; Speech Perception; Superior temporal gyrus; Surface; Techniques; Testing; Therapeutic; Time; Voice; Work; attentional modulation; auditory pathway; cognitive ability; computer framework; density; design; expectation; experimental study; indexing; innovation; interest; learning strategy; neuroimaging; neuromechanism; neurophysiology; novel; public health relevance; receptive field; relating to nervous system; research clinical testing; response; selective attention; spatiotemporal; speech processing

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Perceiving and following an individual speaker in a crowded, noisy environment is a commonplace task for listeners with normal hearing. The underlying neurophysiology, however, is complex, and the task remains a struggle for people with peripheral and central auditory pathway disorders. The lack of a detailed neurobiological model of mechanisms and functions underlying robust speech perception has hindered our understanding of how these processes become impaired in the suffering population. In our innovative approach, we will record from high-density micro and macro electrode arrays surgically implanted on the superior temporal gyrus of epilepsy patients as part of their clinical evaluation. This method offers an exceptionally detailed perspective of cortical population activity. We will build upon two recent complementary findings where we identified a highly selective, spatially distributed neural representation of phonetic features (Mesgarani et. al. Science, 2014), which at the same time is highly dynamic and can change rapidly to reflect the perceptual bias of the listener (Mesgarani & Chang, Nature 2012). While significant, these studies revealed several gaps in our understanding of this process, which we intend to address in this proposal. Specifically, we will resolve the following unanswered questions: 1) what is the neural mechanism for joint encoding of both phonetic and speaker features? 2) How does attention modulate phonetic and speaker feature selectivity of neural responses? And 3) what computational mechanisms can account for dynamic feature selectivity of responses in STG? Answering these questions will significantly advance our understanding of a remarkable human ability, and will be of great interest to researchers from many areas including neurologists, and sensory and cognitive neuroscientists.

描述（由申请人提供）：对于听力正常的听众来说，在拥挤、嘈杂的环境中感知并跟随说话者是一项司空见惯的任务。然而，潜在的神经生理学是复杂的，对于周围和中枢听觉通路障碍的人来说，这项任务仍然是一场斗争。缺乏一个详细的机制和功能的神经生物学模型，强大的语言感知，阻碍了我们对这些过程如何在受苦的人群中受损的理解。在我们的创新方法中，我们将通过手术植入癫痫患者颞上回的高密度微观和宏观电极阵列进行记录，作为其临床评估的一部分。这种方法提供了一个非常详细的视角皮质种群活动。我们将以最近的两个互补发现为基础，其中我们确定了语音特征的高度选择性，空间分布的神经表征（Mesgarani et. al. Science, 2014），同时它是高度动态的，可以快速变化以反映听者的感知偏见（Mesgarani & Chang, Nature 2012）。这些研究虽然意义重大，但也揭示了我们对这一进程的理解存在一些差距，我们打算在本建议中加以解决。具体来说，我们将解决以下未解决的问题：1)语音和说话人特征联合编码的神经机制是什么？2)注意如何调节神经反应的语音和说话人特征选择性？3)什么样的计算机制可以解释STG中响应的动态特征选择性？回答这些问题将极大地促进我们对人类非凡能力的理解，并将引起包括神经学家、感觉和认知神经科学家在内的许多领域的研究人员的极大兴趣。