1
|
Li KE, Dimitrijevic A, Gordon KA, Pang EW, Greiner HM, Kadis DS. Age-related increases in right hemisphere support for prosodic processing in children. Sci Rep 2023; 13:15849. [PMID: 37740012 PMCID: PMC10516972 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-43027-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2023] [Accepted: 09/18/2023] [Indexed: 09/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Language comprehension is a complex process involving an extensive brain network. Brain regions responsible for prosodic processing have been studied in adults; however, much less is known about the neural bases of prosodic processing in children. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we mapped regions supporting speech envelope tracking (a marker of prosodic processing) in 80 typically developing children, ages 4-18 years, completing a stories listening paradigm. Neuromagnetic signals coherent with the speech envelope were localized using dynamic imaging of coherent sources (DICS). Across the group, we observed coherence in bilateral perisylvian cortex. We observed age-related increases in coherence to the speech envelope in the right superior temporal gyrus (r = 0.31, df = 78, p = 0.0047) and primary auditory cortex (r = 0.27, df = 78, p = 0.016); age-related decreases in coherence to the speech envelope were observed in the left superior temporal gyrus (r = - 0.25, df = 78, p = 0.026). This pattern may indicate a refinement of the networks responsible for prosodic processing during development, where language areas in the right hemisphere become increasingly specialized for prosodic processing. Altogether, these results reveal a distinct neurodevelopmental trajectory for the processing of prosodic cues, highlighting the presence of supportive language functions in the right hemisphere. Findings from this dataset of typically developing children may serve as a potential reference timeline for assessing children with neurodevelopmental hearing and speech disorders.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Kristen E Li
- Department of Physiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Neurosciences and Mental Health, Hospital for Sick Children, 686 Bay Street, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Andrew Dimitrijevic
- Department of Physiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Department of Otolaryngology, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Department of Otolaryngology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Karen A Gordon
- Neurosciences and Mental Health, Hospital for Sick Children, 686 Bay Street, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada
- Department of Otolaryngology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Elizabeth W Pang
- Neurosciences and Mental Health, Hospital for Sick Children, 686 Bay Street, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada
- Division of Neurology, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Hansel M Greiner
- Division of Neurology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA
| | - Darren S Kadis
- Department of Physiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
- Neurosciences and Mental Health, Hospital for Sick Children, 686 Bay Street, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada.
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Mohammadi Y, Graversen C, Østergaard J, Andersen OK, Reichenbach T. Phase-locking of Neural Activity to the Envelope of Speech in the Delta Frequency Band Reflects Differences between Word Lists and Sentences. J Cogn Neurosci 2023; 35:1301-1311. [PMID: 37379482 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_02016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/30/2023]
Abstract
The envelope of a speech signal is tracked by neural activity in the cerebral cortex. The cortical tracking occurs mainly in two frequency bands, theta (4-8 Hz) and delta (1-4 Hz). Tracking in the faster theta band has been mostly associated with lower-level acoustic processing, such as the parsing of syllables, whereas the slower tracking in the delta band relates to higher-level linguistic information of words and word sequences. However, much regarding the more specific association between cortical tracking and acoustic as well as linguistic processing remains to be uncovered. Here, we recorded EEG responses to both meaningful sentences and random word lists in different levels of signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) that lead to different levels of speech comprehension as well as listening effort. We then related the neural signals to the acoustic stimuli by computing the phase-locking value (PLV) between the EEG recordings and the speech envelope. We found that the PLV in the delta band increases with increasing SNR for sentences but not for the random word lists, showing that the PLV in this frequency band reflects linguistic information. When attempting to disentangle the effects of SNR, speech comprehension, and listening effort, we observed a trend that the PLV in the delta band might reflect listening effort rather than the other two variables, although the effect was not statistically significant. In summary, our study shows that the PLV in the delta band reflects linguistic information and might be related to listening effort.
Collapse
|
3
|
Van Herck S, Economou M, Bempt FV, Ghesquière P, Vandermosten M, Wouters J. Pulsatile modulation greatly enhances neural synchronization at syllable rate in children. Neuroimage 2023:120223. [PMID: 37315772 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120223] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2022] [Revised: 05/22/2023] [Accepted: 06/11/2023] [Indexed: 06/16/2023] Open
Abstract
Neural processing of the speech envelope is of crucial importance for speech perception and comprehension. This envelope processing is often investigated by measuring neural synchronization to sinusoidal amplitude-modulated stimuli at different modulation frequencies. However, it has been argued that these stimuli lack ecological validity. Pulsatile amplitude-modulated stimuli, on the other hand, are suggested to be more ecologically valid and efficient, and have increased potential to uncover the neural mechanisms behind some developmental disorders such a dyslexia. Nonetheless, pulsatile stimuli have not yet been investigated in pre-reading and beginning reading children, which is a crucial age for developmental reading research. We performed a longitudinal study to examine the potential of pulsatile stimuli in this age range. Fifty-two typically reading children were tested at three time points from the middle of their last year of kindergarten (5 years old) to the end of first grade (7 years old). Using electroencephalography, we measured neural synchronization to syllable rate and phoneme rate sinusoidal and pulsatile amplitude-modulated stimuli. Our results revealed that the pulsatile stimuli significantly enhance neural synchronization at syllable rate, compared to the sinusoidal stimuli. Additionally, the pulsatile stimuli at syllable rate elicited a different hemispheric specialization, more closely resembling natural speech envelope tracking. We postulate that using the pulsatile stimuli greatly increases EEG data acquisition efficiency compared to the common sinusoidal amplitude-modulated stimuli in research in younger children and in developmental reading research.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Shauni Van Herck
- Research Group ExpORL, Department of Neurosciences, KU Leuven, Belgium; Parenting and Special Education Research Unit, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium.
| | - Maria Economou
- Research Group ExpORL, Department of Neurosciences, KU Leuven, Belgium; Parenting and Special Education Research Unit, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium
| | - Femke Vanden Bempt
- Research Group ExpORL, Department of Neurosciences, KU Leuven, Belgium; Parenting and Special Education Research Unit, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium
| | - Pol Ghesquière
- Parenting and Special Education Research Unit, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium
| | | | - Jan Wouters
- Research Group ExpORL, Department of Neurosciences, KU Leuven, Belgium
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Macías-Macías JM, Ramírez-Quintana JA, Chacón-Murguía MI, Torres-García AA, Corral-Martínez LF. Interpretation of a deep analysis of speech imagery features extracted by a capsule neural network. Comput Biol Med 2023; 159:106909. [PMID: 37071937 DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2023.106909] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/05/2022] [Revised: 03/28/2023] [Accepted: 04/10/2023] [Indexed: 04/20/2023]
Abstract
Speech imagery has been successfully employed in developing Brain-Computer Interfaces because it is a novel mental strategy that generates brain activity more intuitively than evoked potentials or motor imagery. There are many methods to analyze speech imagery signals, but those based on deep neural networks achieve the best results. However, more research is necessary to understand the properties and features that describe imagined phonemes and words. In this paper, we analyze the statistical properties of speech imagery EEG signals from the KaraOne dataset to design a method that classifies imagined phonemes and words. With this analysis, we propose a Capsule Neural Network that categorizes speech imagery patterns into bilabial, nasal, consonant-vocal, and vowels/iy/ and/uw/. The method is called Capsules for Speech Imagery Analysis (CapsK-SI). The input of CapsK-SI is a set of statistical features of EEG speech imagery signals. The architecture of the Capsule Neural Network is composed of a convolution layer, a primary capsule layer, and a class capsule layer. The average accuracy reached is 90.88%±7 for bilabial, 90.15%±8 for nasal, 94.02%±6 for consonant-vowel, 89.70%±8 for word-phoneme, 94.33%± for/iy/ vowel and, 94.21%±3 for/uw/ vowel detection. Finally, with the activity vectors of the CapsK-SI capsules, we generated brain maps to represent brain activity in the production of bilabial, nasal, and consonant-vocal signals.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- José M Macías-Macías
- Tecnológico Nacional de México/IT Chihuahua, Av. Tecnológico 2909, Chihuahua, 31310, Chihuahua, Mexico.
| | - Juan A Ramírez-Quintana
- Tecnológico Nacional de México/IT Chihuahua, Av. Tecnológico 2909, Chihuahua, 31310, Chihuahua, Mexico
| | - Mario I Chacón-Murguía
- Tecnológico Nacional de México/IT Chihuahua, Av. Tecnológico 2909, Chihuahua, 31310, Chihuahua, Mexico
| | - Alejandro A Torres-García
- Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica Óptica y Electrónica, Luis Enrique Erro No 1, Tonanzintla, 72840, Puebla, Mexico
| | - Luis F Corral-Martínez
- Tecnológico Nacional de México/IT Chihuahua, Av. Tecnológico 2909, Chihuahua, 31310, Chihuahua, Mexico
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Hernández D, Kärkkäinen S, Tulonen T, Helenius P, Salmelin R, Parviainen T. Attentional modulation of interhemispheric (a)symmetry in children with developmental language disorder. Sci Rep 2022; 12:17904. [PMID: 36284164 PMCID: PMC9596496 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-22820-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2022] [Accepted: 10/19/2022] [Indexed: 01/20/2023] Open
Abstract
The nature of auditory processing problems in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) is still poorly understood. Much research has been devoted to determining the extent to which DLD is associated with general auditory versus language-specific dysfunction. However, less emphasis has been given to the role of different task conditions in these dysfunctions. We explored whether children with DLD demonstrate atypical interhemispheric asymmetry during the auditory processing of speech and non-speech sounds and whether this interhemispheric balance is modulated by attention. Magnetoencephalography was used to record auditory evoked fields in 18 children (9 to 10 years old), 9 with DLD and 9 with language typical development, during active or passive listening to speech and non-speech sounds. A linear mixed model analysis revealed a bilateral effect of attention in both groups. Participants with DLD demonstrated atypical interhemispheric asymmetry, specifically in the later (185-600 ms) time window but only during the passive listening condition. During the active task, the DLD group did not differ from the typically developed children in terms of hemispheric balance of activation. Our results support the idea of an altered interhemispheric balance in passive auditory response properties in DLD. We further suggest that an active task condition, or top-down attention, can help to regain leftward lateralization, particularly in a later stage of activation. Our study highlights the highly dynamic and interhemispheric nature of auditory processing, which may contribute to the variability in reports of auditory language processing deficits in DLD.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Doris Hernández
- grid.9681.60000 0001 1013 7965Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Research, Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Kärki, Mattilanniemi 6, P.O. Box 35, 40014 Jyväskylä, Finland
| | - Salme Kärkkäinen
- grid.9681.60000 0001 1013 7965Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014 Jyväskylä, Finland
| | - Terhi Tulonen
- grid.9681.60000 0001 1013 7965Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014 Jyväskylä, Finland
| | - Päivi Helenius
- grid.15485.3d0000 0000 9950 5666Division of Child Neurology, Helsinki University Hospital, HUS, P.O. Box 100, 00029 Helsinki, Finland
| | - Riitta Salmelin
- grid.5373.20000000108389418Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, P.O. Box 12200, 00076 Espoo, Finland ,grid.5373.20000000108389418Aalto NeuroImaging, Aalto University, P.O. Box 15100, 00076 Espoo, Finland
| | - Tiina Parviainen
- grid.9681.60000 0001 1013 7965Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Research, Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Kärki, Mattilanniemi 6, P.O. Box 35, 40014 Jyväskylä, Finland ,grid.5373.20000000108389418Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, P.O. Box 12200, 00076 Espoo, Finland
| |
Collapse
|
6
|
Mandke K, Flanagan S, Macfarlane A, Gabrielczyk F, Wilson A, Gross J, Goswami U. Neural sampling of the speech signal at different timescales by children with dyslexia. Neuroimage 2022; 253:119077. [PMID: 35278708 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119077] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/04/2021] [Revised: 01/15/2022] [Accepted: 03/07/2022] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Phonological difficulties characterize individuals with dyslexia across languages. Currently debated is whether these difficulties arise from atypical neural sampling of (or entrainment to) auditory information in speech at slow rates (<10 Hz, related to speech rhythm), faster rates, or neither. MEG studies with adults suggest that atypical sampling in dyslexia affects faster modulations in the neurophysiological gamma band, related to phoneme-level representation. However, dyslexic adults have had years of reduced experience in converting graphemes to phonemes, which could itself cause atypical gamma-band activity. The present study was designed to identify specific linguistic timescales at which English children with dyslexia may show atypical entrainment. Adopting a developmental focus, we hypothesized that children with dyslexia would show atypical entrainment to the prosodic and syllable-level information that is exaggerated in infant-directed speech and carried primarily by amplitude modulations <10 Hz. MEG was recorded in a naturalistic story-listening paradigm. The modulation bands related to different types of linguistic information were derived directly from the speech materials, and lagged coherence at multiple temporal rates spanning 0.9-40 Hz was computed. Group differences in lagged speech-brain coherence between children with dyslexia and control children were most marked in neurophysiological bands corresponding to stress and syllable-level information (<5 Hz in our materials), and phoneme-level information (12-40 Hz). Functional connectivity analyses showed network differences between groups in both hemispheres, with dyslexic children showing significantly reduced global network efficiency. Global network efficiency correlated with dyslexic children's oral language development and with control children's reading development. These developmental data suggest that dyslexia is characterized by atypical neural sampling of auditory information at slower rates. They also throw new light on the nature of the gamma band temporal sampling differences reported in MEG dyslexia studies with adults.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Kanad Mandke
- Centre for Neuroscience in Education, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, United Kingdom.
| | - Sheila Flanagan
- Centre for Neuroscience in Education, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, United Kingdom
| | - Annabel Macfarlane
- Centre for Neuroscience in Education, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, United Kingdom
| | - Fiona Gabrielczyk
- Centre for Neuroscience in Education, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, United Kingdom
| | - Angela Wilson
- Centre for Neuroscience in Education, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, United Kingdom
| | - Joachim Gross
- Institute for Biomagnetism and Biosignal Analysis, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
| | - Usha Goswami
- Centre for Neuroscience in Education, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, United Kingdom
| |
Collapse
|
7
|
Gnanateja GN, Devaraju DS, Heyne M, Quique YM, Sitek KR, Tardif MC, Tessmer R, Dial HR. On the Role of Neural Oscillations Across Timescales in Speech and Music Processing. Front Comput Neurosci 2022; 16:872093. [PMID: 35814348 PMCID: PMC9260496 DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2022.872093] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/09/2022] [Accepted: 05/24/2022] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
This mini review is aimed at a clinician-scientist seeking to understand the role of oscillations in neural processing and their functional relevance in speech and music perception. We present an overview of neural oscillations, methods used to study them, and their functional relevance with respect to music processing, aging, hearing loss, and disorders affecting speech and language. We first review the oscillatory frequency bands and their associations with speech and music processing. Next we describe commonly used metrics for quantifying neural oscillations, briefly touching upon the still-debated mechanisms underpinning oscillatory alignment. Following this, we highlight key findings from research on neural oscillations in speech and music perception, as well as contributions of this work to our understanding of disordered perception in clinical populations. Finally, we conclude with a look toward the future of oscillatory research in speech and music perception, including promising methods and potential avenues for future work. We note that the intention of this mini review is not to systematically review all literature on cortical tracking of speech and music. Rather, we seek to provide the clinician-scientist with foundational information that can be used to evaluate and design research studies targeting the functional role of oscillations in speech and music processing in typical and clinical populations.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- G Nike Gnanateja
- Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
| | - Dhatri S Devaraju
- Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
| | - Matthias Heyne
- Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
| | - Yina M Quique
- Center for Education in Health Sciences, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States
| | - Kevin R Sitek
- Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
| | - Monique C Tardif
- Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
| | - Rachel Tessmer
- Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, United States
| | - Heather R Dial
- Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, United States.,Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Houston, Houston, TX, United States
| |
Collapse
|