Sensory Basis for Speech Motor Learning

项目摘要/摘要 该项目涉及言语运动学习和言语知觉功能的研究，重点是 躯体感觉系统的可塑性。Aim 1中的研究验证了躯体感觉的假设 在语言运动过程中，系统对大脑感觉运动网络的变化起到作用 学习。这些研究使用了一种机器人设备，这种设备在说话和说话时选择性地改变体感输入 测量受试者对这种机械扰动的适应性反应。此技术与一种 新的静息状态神经成像分析，从一组编码学习的区域中识别 这些人的功能连接既通过学习得到加强，又不是活动的副产品 网络中的其他地方。我们的初步结果表明，躯体感觉系统有助于 在语言运动学习过程中，大脑的感觉运动网络发生了广泛的变化。目标2将 测试语言运动适应依赖于感觉工作记忆(听觉和躯体感觉)的想法 工作记忆中的个体差异预示着适应。我们将暂时打压活动 前额叶皮质与听觉和躯体工作记忆相关的区域，使用连续的theta- 突破性经颅磁刺激，检测其在言语运动学习中的作用。AIM 3测试 一种假设，即躯体感觉输入与正常情况下与言语产生有关的感觉输入相当 改变对语音的感知并揭示躯体皮质网络的存在 参与言语感知。我们已经开发了一种与MR兼容的机器人设备，它可以提供 当参与者在扫描仪中听语音时，面部皮肤变形的语音模式。我们 将使用这项技术来测试听觉和躯体感觉输入的重复配对 发生在言语运动学习中，用来使大脑的体感区域参与言语感知。

Project Summary / Abstract This project involves studies of speech motor learning and speech perceptual function that focus on plasticity in the somatosensory system. The studies in Aim 1 test the hypothesis that the somatosensory system contributes to changes to the brain’s sensorimotor network over the course of speech motor learning. These studies use a robotic device that selectively alters somatosensory input during speech and measures subjects’ adaptive responses to this mechanical perturbation. This technique is combined with a new resting-state neuroimaging analysis that identifies from among the set of areas that encode learning those whose functional connectivity is both strengthened with learning and are not a by-product of activity elsewhere in the network. Our preliminary results suggest that somatosensory system contributes to extensive changes to the brain’s sensorimotor network over the course of speech motor learning. Aim 2 will test the idea that speech motor adaptation relies on sensory working memory (auditory and somatosensory) and that individual differences in working memory predict adaptation. We will transiently suppress activity in a region of pre-frontal cortex associated with auditory and somatic working memory, using continuous theta- burst trans-cranial magnetic stimulation, to test its involvement in speech motor learning. Aim 3 tests the hypothesis that somatosensory inputs comparable to those normally associated with speech production alter the perception of speech sounds and reveal the presence of a somatic cortical network that participates in speech perception. We have developed an MR compatible robotic device that delivers speech-like patterns of facial skin deformation as participants listen to speech sounds in the scanner. We will use this technique to test the idea that repeated pairing of auditory and somatosensory inputs, as would occur in speech motor learning, serves to engage somatosensory areas of the brain in speech perception.