NCS-FO: Distributed neural organization of sensorimotor dynamics

说话是人类最复杂的行为之一，然而言语是很容易产生的，几乎不需要有意识的努力。 了解大脑控制发声的各种器官和肌肉的方式是一个基本的科学问题，可以阐明更普遍的原则，可以描述大脑如何编程和控制所有行为。 为了了解发声中运动行为的神经机制，拟议的研究将测试有关不同大脑区域的时间，产生发声行为的肌肉的时间以及对正常和异常听觉反馈的反应的具体假设。 了解运动控制的神经机制可以产生广泛的影响，包括开发更像人类的机器人，更好的计算机生成的语音和发声假体，以及治疗口吃，构音障碍，失语症和其他语音产生问题的新疗法。拟议的研究将测量人类和鸣禽控制发声的神经回路的时间。 鸟鸣产生系统长期以来一直被用作与理解语音产生相关的模型系统。虽然比人类更简单，实验的行为控制也更少，但研究鸟鸣在提供比人类更细粒度的声音学习系统神经活动测量方面是互补的。这些实验将测试一个新的假设，即运动系统不是由通常假设的“自上而下”的组织方案组织的，而是由一个连贯的网络，该网络作为一个单一的机制运行，如某些非线性系统的数学所描述的。物种之间的比较也将提供关于结果在非常不同的物种和神经系统中的稳健性的信息，从而提供结果的泛化的可能性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Speaking is one of the most complicated human behaviors and yet speech is produced easily and with little conscious effort. Understanding the way the brain controls the various organs and muscles of vocalization is a basic scientific question that may illuminate more general principles that can describe how the brain programs and controls all behavior. In order to understand the neural mechanisms of motor behavior in vocal production, the proposed research will test specific hypotheses about the timing of different brain regions, the timing of muscles that produce vocal behavior, and the response to normal and abnormal auditory feedback. Understanding the neural mechanisms of motor control can have broad implications, including the development of more human-like robots, better computer-generated speech and vocal prostheses, as well as new therapies for treating articulatory disorders such as stuttering, dysarthria, aphasia, and other problems in speech production.The proposed research will measure the timing of neural circuits that control vocalization in humans and song birds. The bird song production system has long been used as a model system that has relevance to understanding speech production. While simpler than humans and with less behavioral control of the experiments, studying birdsong is complementary in providing more granular measurements of neural activity in a vocal learning system than possible in humans. The experiments will test a novel hypothesis, that the motor system is not organized by the commonly assumed "top down" organizational scheme, but by a coherent network that operates as a unitary mechanism as described by certain mathematics of non-linear systems. The comparison between species will also be informative about how robust the results are across very different species and neural systems offering the possibility of generalization of the results.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.