Auditory Sensory Discrimination Research Articles

Auditory central pathways in children and adolescents with multiple sclerosis.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory demyelinating disease. Auditory evoked potential studies have demonstrated conduction and neural processing deficits in adults with MS, but little is known about the electrophysiological responses in children and adolescents. to evaluate the central auditory pathway with brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEP) and long-latency auditory evoked potentials (LLAEP) in children and adolescents with MS. The study comprised 17 individuals with MS, of both sexes, aged 9 to 18 years, and 17 healthy volunteers, matched for age and sex. All individuals had normal hearing and no middle ear impairments. They were assessed with click-BAEP and LLAEP through oddball paradigm and tone-burst stimuli. Abnormal responses were observed in 60% of electrophysiologic assessments of individuals with MS. In BAEP, 58.82% of MS patients had abnormal responses, with longer wave V latency and therefore longer III-V and I-V interpeak latencies than healthy volunteers. In LLAEP, 52.94% of MS patients had abnormal responses. Although statistical differences were found only in P2-N2 amplitude, MS patients had longer latencies and smaller amplitudes than healthy volunteers in all components. Children and adolescents with MS had abnormal BAEP responses, with delayed neural conduction between the cochlear nucleus and the lateral lemniscus. Also, abnormal LLAEP results suggest a decrease in neural processing speed and auditory sensory discrimination response.

Deficits in auditory sensory discrimination among children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Research into children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has focused on complex cognitive dysfunction, but less attention has been paid to sensory perception processes underlying the symptoms of ADHD. Based on signal detection theory, the present study compared the sensory discrimination ability and decision bias of children with and without ADHD. It also investigated the differences between ADHD with predominantly inattentive (ADHDi) and combined presentations (ADHDc). The sample of 75 children and adolescents with ADHD (24 ADHDi, 51 ADHDc) (16 females and 59 males) and 22 typical developing controls (TD) (8 females and 14 males) completed an auditory signal detection task. Participants were asked to detect signals against levels of transient background noise (35, 45, 55, and 65dB). The results showed that with the increase of noise levels, both the ADHD and TD groups demonstrated decreased sensory discrimination. Although both groups successfully detected signal against noise levels from 35 to 55dB, the ADHD group showed lower discrimination ability than that of the TD group. For decision bias, no group difference was found. Further comparisons regarding the predominant symptom presentation of ADHD sub-groups showed no differences. Current research has suggested that the deficit in ADHD people's signal detection performance can be attributed to sensory discrimination rather than decision bias. We suggest that background noise should be taken into account when using auditory stimuli to investigate cognitive functions in people with ADHD.

Mismatch Negativity is a Sensitive and Predictive Biomarker of Perceptual Learning During Auditory Cognitive Training in Schizophrenia.

Computerized cognitive training is gaining empirical support for use in the treatment of schizophrenia (SZ). Although cognitive training is efficacious for SZ at a group level when delivered in sufficiently intensive doses (eg, 30-50 h), there is variability in individual patient response. The identification of biomarkers sensitive to the neural systems engaged by cognitive training interventions early in the course of treatment could facilitate personalized assignment to treatment. This proof-of-concept study was conducted to determine whether mismatch negativity (MMN), an event-related potential index of auditory sensory discrimination associated with cognitive and psychosocial functioning, would predict gains in auditory perceptual learning and exhibit malleability after initial exposure to the early stages of auditory cognitive training in SZ. MMN was assessed in N=28 SZ patients immediately before and after completing 1 h of a speeded time-order judgment task of two successive frequency-modulated sweeps (Posit Science 'Sound Sweeps' exercise). All SZ patients exhibited the expected improvements in auditory perceptual learning over the 1 h training period (p<0.001), consistent with previous results. Larger MMN amplitudes recorded both before and after the training exercises were associated with greater gains in auditory perceptual learning (r=-0.5 and r=-0.67, respectively, p's<0.01). Significant pretraining vs posttraining MMN amplitude reduction was also observed (p<0.02). MMN is a sensitive index of the neural systems engaged in a single session of auditory cognitive training in SZ. These findings encourage future trials of MMN as a biomarker for individual assignment, prediction, and/or monitoring of patient response to procognitive interventions, including auditory cognitive training in SZ.

An acute dose, randomized trial of the effects of CDP-Choline on Mismatch Negativity (MMN) in healthy volunteers stratified by deviance detection level

Alpha 7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (α7 nAChR) are prioritized molecular targets for the development of new pharmacological treatments for impaired cognition in schizophrenia. The use of schizophrenia-associated biomarkers both as endpoints and for segmentation of homogeneous populations for early detection of cognitive enhancing agents has been advanced to enhance the drug discovery process. In this study, the mismatch negativity (MMN) event-related brain potential (ERP), considered one of the few fully developed biomarkers in schizophrenia, was employed: a) to stratify 24 healthy volunteers into subgroups exhibiting low, medium, or high auditory sensory discrimination based on pre-attentive detection of deviant auditory features, and b) to assess their acute response to a low (500 mg) and moderate dose (1000 mg) of CDP-choline, a dietary supplement with selective agonist actions at α7 nAChRs. No significant whole group effects were observed with CDP-choline, and MMN changes were observed only with analysis of subgroups. The effects of CDP-choline interacted both with deviant type and auditory deviance detection level, with individuals exhibiting low MMNs showing enhanced amplitudes, while those with high MMNs evidenced reduced amplitudes with acute dosing of CDP-choline. These preliminary findings of improved auditory deviance detection with CDP-choline in our biomarker-defined healthy surrogate group supports the contention that α7 nicotinic cholinergic agonism be studied as a potential pro-cognitive mechanism in patients with schizophrenia.

Effect of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on MMN-indexed auditory discrimination: a pilot study.

Membrane potentials and brain plasticity are basic modes of cerebral information processing. Both can be externally (non-invasively) modulated by weak transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Polarity-dependent tDCS-induced reversible circumscribed increases and decreases in cortical excitability and functional changes have been observed following stimulation of motor and visual cortices but relatively little research has been conducted with respect to the auditory cortex. The aim of this pilot study was to examine the effects of tDCS on auditory sensory discrimination in healthy participants (N = 12) assessed with the mismatch negativity (MMN) brain event-related potential (ERP). In a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled design, participants received anodal tDCS over the primary auditory cortex (2 mA for 20 min) in one session and 'sham' stimulation (i.e., no stimulation except initial ramp-up for 30 s) in the other session. MMN elicited by changes in auditory pitch was found to be enhanced after receiving anodal tDCS compared to 'sham' stimulation, with the effects being evidenced in individuals with relatively reduced (vs. increased) baseline amplitudes and with relatively small (vs. large) pitch deviants. Additional studies are needed to further explore relationships between tDCS-related parameters, auditory stimulus features and individual differences prior to assessing the utility of this tool for treating auditory processing deficits in psychiatric and/or neurological disorders.

Tracking Brain Plasticity in Cochlear Implant Patients Using the Event-Related Optical Signal (EROS)

Event Abstract Back to Event Tracking Brain Plasticity in Cochlear Implant Patients Using the Event-Related Optical Signal (EROS) Chun-Yu Tse1, 2*, Michael A. Novak3, Chin-Hong Tan2, Jennifer Black3, Brian A. Gordon2, 4, Ed Maclin2, Benjamin Zimmerman2, Gabriele Gratton2 and Monica Fabiani2 1 The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Department of Psychology & Center for Cognition and Brain Studies, China 2 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Beckman Institute & Department of Psychology, United States 3 Carle Foundation Hospital, United States 4 Washington University in St. Louis, Department of Radiology, United States Cochlear implants assist people with profound hearing loss to interact with the environment and to reestablish verbal communication, by replacing the function of damaged cochlear hair cells with direct stimulation of the auditory nerve. This process provides a unique opportunity for studying plasticity in the adult human brain. Changes in the fronto-temporal network involved in auditory sensory discrimination were tracked from before to after implantation (i.e., before the implant, at 2-weeks post-implant, and at 6-months post-implant) in six cochlear implant patients using the Event-Related Optical Signal (EROS). EROS measures changes in the way brain tissue scatters near-infrared light that are associated with neuronal activity. EROS has high resolution in both the temporal and spatial dimensions, as it can measure the time course of neuronal activity in localized brain regions. All participants suffered from post-lingual hearing loss in the high frequency range, but had some residual hearing in the low frequency range. Each imaging session included three types of stimulus blocks: high and low frequency auditory discrimination, and visual discrimination (control) blocks. Auditory blocks consisted of 100-ms (80%) and 50-ms (20%) tones while visual blocks consisted of vertical (80%) or horizontal (20%) black-and-white bars. Participants had to classify the stimuli according to the length of the tones or the orientation of the bars by button press. After implantation, larger improvements in accuracy were observed for the high-frequency than for the low-frequency blocks. This corresponded to an increase in activity in the high-frequency blocks at a latency of 100-200 ms after tone presentation, which was observed in temporal cortex in most participants and in frontal cortex in some participants. This is the first study demonstrating the feasibility of using EROS for monitoring brain reorganization associated with recovery of hearing ability after cochlear implant. Keywords: Auditory Perception, Cochlear Implants, plasticity, Event-Related Optical Signal (EROS), fronto-temporal network Conference: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Methods Development Citation: Tse C, Novak MA, Tan C, Black J, Gordon BA, Maclin E, Zimmerman B, Gratton G and Fabiani M (2015). Tracking Brain Plasticity in Cochlear Implant Patients Using the Event-Related Optical Signal (EROS). Conference Abstract: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00063 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 19 Feb 2015; Published Online: 24 Apr 2015. * Correspondence: Prof. Chun-Yu Tse, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Department of Psychology & Center for Cognition and Brain Studies, Sha Tin, China, cytse@psy.cuhk.edu.hk Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Chun-Yu Tse Michael A Novak Chin-Hong Tan Jennifer Black Brian A Gordon Ed Maclin Benjamin Zimmerman Gabriele Gratton Monica Fabiani Google Chun-Yu Tse Michael A Novak Chin-Hong Tan Jennifer Black Brian A Gordon Ed Maclin Benjamin Zimmerman Gabriele Gratton Monica Fabiani Google Scholar Chun-Yu Tse Michael A Novak Chin-Hong Tan Jennifer Black Brian A Gordon Ed Maclin Benjamin Zimmerman Gabriele Gratton Monica Fabiani PubMed Chun-Yu Tse Michael A Novak Chin-Hong Tan Jennifer Black Brian A Gordon Ed Maclin Benjamin Zimmerman Gabriele Gratton Monica Fabiani Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Deconstructing the auditory sensory discrimination network in schizophrenia: clinical, cognitive, and functional correlates

Deconstructing the auditory sensory discrimination network in schizophrenia: clinical, cognitive, and functional correlates

Deficient speech-sound processing, as shown by the electrophysiologic brain mismatch negativity response, and naming ability in prematurely born children

Very low birth weight (VLBW, <1500 g) preterm birth has been associated with anatomic abnormalities in brain development and cognitive and language disorders. We examined object naming ability, and an electrophysiologic index of auditory sensory discrimination of speech sounds (the mismatch negativity, MMN) in 4-year-old VLBW prematurely born children. We found that half of the VLBW children were inferior to their controls in the object naming ability. Also the MMN amplitudes were smaller in the preterm group as compared with the controls. Further, the MMN amplitude varied as a function of children's performance on object naming, such that the weaker object-naming performance of the preterm group was paralleled by the diminished MMN amplitudes. Therefore, difficulties in auditory discrimination seem to be implicated in language difficulties encountered in VLBW prematurely born children.

Event-related potential indices of auditory vowel processing in 3-year-old children.

To determine the ERP characteristics and ERP indices of central speech sound encoding and discrimination in young children. Auditory sensory event-related potentials (ERPs) and the ERP index of auditory sensory discrimination (the mismatch negativity, MMN) were elicited by vowel stimuli in 3-year-old children. In an oddball paradigm, the standard stimulus was vowel /a/, one deviant stimulus was vowel /o/ (the across-category change), and the other was nasalized vowel /a/ (within-category change). In addition, the ERP changes occurring during the 14 min uninterrupted recording were examined. As indexed by the sensory P1, N2, and N4 peaks, the 3-year-old children's transient neural encoding of vowels was comparable to that earlier registered in 1-year-old children but also showed vowel-specific characteristics observed in school-age children. The 3-year-old's MMN was comparable in amplitude to the school-age children's MMN and appeared to be sensitive to the across-category aspects of vowel changes. However, its latency was longer in the 3-year-olds than in school-age children. Among the sensory ERPs, only the N4 peak showed significant diminution during the experiment. The across-category change MMN diminished after 10 min of the recording, however, over the frontal areas only. In the 3-year-old children, the sensory processing of vowels exhibited transitional characteristics between those observed in infants and school-age children. The auditory sensory discrimination in the 3-year-olds appeared to be sensitive to the phonemic aspects of stimulus change. The frontally-predominant MMN diminution during the experiment might indicate the greater refractoriness of its frontal-lobe generators. In general, the auditory sensory ERPs show distinct maturational profiles from that of the MMN.

Sound complexity and ‘speechness’ effects on pre-attentive auditory discrimination in children

The evidence in adults suggests that at a cortical level simple and complex sounds are processed by partly divergent subsystems. In children, central processing of sounds differing in complexity has not been investigated. Therefore, the present study examined preconscious discrimination of the differences in sound frequency and duration as a function of sound complexity in 8–10-year-old children. A mismatch negativity (MMN) component of auditory event-related potentials was elicited in a paradigm where ‘deviant’ (rare) stimuli were either shorter in duration or higher in frequency than the ‘standard’ (repetitive) sounds. Vowels and vowel-matched complex and simple tones were presented in separate sequences. The stimulus complexity effects were sizable and appeared as larger areas and shorter and more consistent latencies of the MMNs, elicited by more complex stimuli. In addition, the vowel frequency MMN showed left hemisphere preponderance compared to the complex tone frequency MMN. No such effect was found for the duration decrement MMNs. In addition, the complex tone duration decrement MMN was distributed posteriorly to either the vowel or sinusoidal tone MMNs. A late discriminative negativity, LDN, did not show consistent effects of sound complexity. In conclusion, acoustically rich sound content facilitates auditory sensory discrimination in 8–10-year-old children. The sound ‘speechness’ effects were not as robust though present. Unlike adults, children demonstrated high intersubject variability in discriminating spectrally poor, but not rich, sounds. The discrimination of the sound duration appears to differ from that of the sound frequency in nature and, consequently, in the neural substrates.

Dynamics of SCR, EEG, and ERP activity in an oddball paradigm with short interstimulus intervals

Studies of concurrent central, and autonomic activity using a conventional event-related potential (ERP) oddball paradigms, are considered useful in elucidating the relationship between central and autonomic responses, but the autonomic response tends to overlap. A new method was used to decompose and score overlapping skin conductance responses (SCR). This method enabled examination of dynamic relationships of phasic SCR, prestimulus electroencephalogram (EEG), and ERP to auditory target stimuli in 50 normal adults. SCR amplitude was negatively correlated to EEG and N200 amplitude. The SCR amplitude changes over time exhibited an exponential decline opposite to those of N200, alpha, and beta. All the fitted exponential functions had a time constant of 1–2 min. The findings suggest that a N200 component, active in the auditory sensory discrimination, is concomitant with the SCR. The narrow range of the time constant may provide a clue to the conjoint processes underlying central and autonomic adaptive functions.

Dynamics of SCR, EEG, and ERP activity in an oddball paradigm with short interstimulus intervals

Studies of concurrent central, and autonomic activity using a conventional event-related potential (ERP) oddball paradigms, are considered useful in elucidating the relationship between central and autonomic responses, but the autonomic response tends to overlap. A new method was used to decompose and score overlapping skin conductance responses (SCR). This method enabled examination of dynamic relationships of phasic SCR, prestimulus electroencephalogram (EEG), and ERP to auditory target stimuli in 50 normal adults. SCR amplitude was negatively correlated to EEG and N200 amplitude. The SCR amplitude changes over time exhibited an exponential decline opposite to those of N200, alpha, and beta. All the fitted exponential functions had a time constant of 1-2 min. The findings suggest that a N200 component, active in the auditory sensory discrimination, is concomitant with the SCR. The narrow range of the time constant may provide a clue to the conjoint processes underlying central and autonomic adaptive functions.

Intercorrelations Among Musical Aptitude Profile and Seashore Measures of Musical Talents Subtests

IN 1919 THE FIRST standardized group aptitude test, the Seashore Measures of Musical Talent} was published. This battery, in its latest revised form (Seashore, 1960), is comprised of six subtests which measure basic auditory sensory discrimination. According to the test author (Seashore, 1938), everything that is rendered as music or heard as music may be expressed in terms of the concepts of the sound Pitch, Loudness, Rhythm, Time, Timbre} and Tonal Memory are tested by requiring subjects to compare a pair or short series of tones which are produced on a beat-frequency oscillator (except on the Tonal Memory subtest). Because these subtests are supposedly void of the interaction of melody, rhythm, and expression, music psychologists (Mursell, 1937) have described and condemned the battery as being atomistic and unmusically-oriented. Specifically, the omnibus group, antagonists of the Seashore approach, believe that musicality consists of more than just the ability to discriminate audio-acoustical differences in the sound wave. Further, these music psychologists, many of whom are European (Lowery, 1940; and Mainwaring, 1947), argue that aptitude is not compnsed of separate abilities, but rather, that it is one general ability. They contend that a instrument should be used as the medium for stating music test items and that the content of each item should, in and of itself, have musical meaning. The comparatively new Musical Aptitude Profile (Gordon, 1965) has been described as an eclectic test because both preference and nonpreference subtests constitute the test battery and also because, while the content of the test items is and is performed by professional musicians, the battery does, nevertheless, provide for the evaluation of seven postulated dimensions of aptitude. The dimensions measured by this standardized group test are classiSed into three main divisions: Tonal Imagery, Rhythm Imagery, and Musical Sensitivity. Two separate subtests are provided for each of the nonpreference tests: Melody and Harmony for Tonal Imagery, and Tempo and Meter for