Spatiotemporal Brain Imaging of Human Auditory Cognition

描述：（申请人提供）21世纪最大的挑战之一是了解人类大脑在健康和疾病中是如何工作的。根据我们的一般模型和假设，复杂行为是在多焦点神经系统的水平上绘制的，而不是特定的解剖部位，从而产生了局部和分布的脑-行为关系。了解人类大脑的工作原理需要了解这种功能神经解剖学；也就是说，执行“什么”类型的处理，不同的处理区域在“哪里”，以及“何时”在分布区域之间组织临时处理。先前的事件相关电位（ERP）和行为研究表明，错配负性（MMN） ERP反应与(a)人类听觉注意、(b)复杂音调模式的预注意处理和(c)语音感知密切相关。尽管关于mmn -认知相互关系的综合理论已经提出，但这种电生理反应的确切神经生理学基础至今仍未得到解决。在这里，我们建议利用我们的时空脑成像技术（包括fMRI， MEG/EEG）来揭示MMN的神经基础。我们的研究结果将与芬兰赫尔辛基大学的同事合作，用于发展MMN的理论和计算模型。本研究的好处是：(1)阐明了人类听觉皮层区域内的注意前变化检测的神经机制；(2)揭示了听觉模式中不自主注意的神经基础，这可能有助于指导未来对精神分裂症或多动症等注意缺陷的临床研究；(3)阐明了人脑中处理复杂声音的皮层组织；(4)测量基本语音（音素）处理的神经操作。

DESCRIPTION: (provided by applicant) One of the greatest challenges of the 21st century is to understand how the human brain works in health and disease. According to our general model and hypothesis, complex behavior is mapped at the level of multi-focal neural systems rather than specific anatomical sites, giving rise to brain-behavior relationships that are both localized and distributed. Understanding how the human brain works requires knowledge of this functional neuroanatomy; namely, "what" type of processing is performed, "where" different processing areas are, and "when" temporal processing is organized between distributed areas. Previous event-related potential (ERP) and behavioral studies have demonstrated that the mismatch negativity (MMN) ERP response is closely tied to (a) human auditory attention, (b) pre-attentive processing of complex tone patterns, and (c) speech perception. Though a comprehensive theory on MMN-cognition interrelationships has been advanced, the precise neurophysiological underpinnings of this electrophysiological response have remained unresolved to date. Here, we propose to utilize our spatiotemporal brain imaging techniques (including fMRI, MEG/EEG) to unravel the neural underpinnings of the MMN. Our results will be used to develop both the theory and a computational model of MMN, working in collaboration with our colleagues at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Benefits of the present study are: (1) elucidation of the neural mechanisms underlying human pre-attentive change detection within the human auditory cortical areas, (2) disclosing the neural substrate of involuntary attention in the auditory modality, which may help to guide future clinical research into the attentional deficits observed in, e.g., schizophrenia or ADHD, (3) elucidation of the cortical organization of processing of complex sounds in the human brain, and (4) measurement of the neural operations underlying processing of elementary speech sounds(phonemes).