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，复杂的行为是在多焦点神经系统的水平上映射的，而不是特定的解剖位置，导致了脑-行为关系的局部性和分布性。要了解人脑是如何工作的，需要了解这一功能神经解剖学的知识；即，执行什么类型的处理，不同的处理区域在哪里，以及何时在分布的区域之间组织时间处理。以往的事件相关电位(ERP)和行为学研究表明，失配负波(MMN)的ERP反应与(A)人类的听觉注意、(B)复杂音调模式的前注意加工和(C)言语感知密切相关。尽管已经提出了MMN-认知相互关系的全面理论，但这种电生理反应的确切神经生理学基础至今仍未解决。在这里，我们建议利用我们的时空脑成像技术(包括功能磁共振成像、脑磁图/脑电)来揭示MMN的神经基础。我们的结果将被用于发展MMN的理论和计算模型，与我们在芬兰赫尔辛基大学的同事合作。本研究的好处是：(1)阐明人类听觉皮层区域内人类前注意变化检测的神经机制；(2)揭示听觉通道中非自愿注意的神经基础，这可能有助于指导未来临床研究，例如精神分裂症或ADHD；(3)阐明人脑中处理复杂声音的皮质组织；以及(4)测量基本语音(音素)加工的神经操作。

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).