Presentation Of Auditory Stimuli Research Articles

Multisensory integration in orienting behavior: Pupil size, microsaccades, and saccades

Signals from different sensory modalities are integrated in the brain to optimize behavior. Although multisensory integration has been demonstrated in saccadic eye movements, its influence on other orienting responses, including pupil size and microsaccades, is still poorly understood. We examined human gaze orienting responses following presentation of visual, auditory, or combined audiovisual stimuli. Transient pupil dilation and microsaccade inhibition were evoked shortly after the appearance of a salient stimulus. Audiovisual stimuli evoked larger pupil dilation, greater microsaccade inhibition, and faster saccade reaction times compared to unimodal conditions. Trials with faster saccadic reaction times were accompanied with greater pupil dilation responses. Similar modulation of pre-stimulus pupil-size-change rate was observed between stimulus-evoked saccadic and pupillary responses. Thus, multisensory integration impacts multiple components of orienting, with coordination between saccade and pupil responses, implicating the superior colliculus in coordinating these responses because of its central role in both orienting behavior and multisensory integration.

GABA metabolism and its role in gamma-band oscillatory activity during auditory processing: An MRS and EEG study.

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glutamate are believed to have inhibitory and exhibitory neuromodulatory effects that regulate the brain's response to sensory perception. Furthermore, frequency-specific synchronization of neuronal excitability within the gamma band (30-80 Hz) is attributable to a homeostatic balance between excitation and inhibition. However, our understanding of the physiological mechanism underlying gamma rhythms is based on animal models. Investigations of the relationship between GABA concentrations, glutamate concentrations, and gamma band activity in humans were mostly restricted to the visual cortex and are conflicting. Here, we performed a multimodal imaging study combining magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) with electroencephalography (EEG) in the auditory cortex. In 14 healthy subjects, we investigated the impact of individual differences in GABA and glutamate concentration on gamma band response (GBR) following auditory stimulus presentation. We explored the effects of bulk GABA on the GBR across frequency (30-200 Hz) and time (-200 to 600 ms) and found no significant relationship. Furthermore, no correlations were found between gamma peak frequency or power measures and metabolite concentrations (GABA, glutamate, and GABA/glutamate ratio). These findings suggest that, according to MRS measurements, and given the auditory stimuli used in this study, GABA and glutamate concentrations are unlikely to play a significant role in the inhibitory and excitatory drive in the generation of gamma band activity in the auditory cortex. Hum Brain Mapp 38:3975-3987, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Auditory conditioned stimulus presentation during NREM sleep impairs fear memory in mice

Externally manipulating memories by presenting conditioned stimuli (CS) during sleep is a new approach to investigating memory processing during sleep. However, whether presenting a CS during REM or NREM sleep enhances or extinguishes fear memory has not been clearly delineated. In this study, mice underwent trace fear conditioning consisting of an auditory CS paired with a foot shock, and the auditory CS was re-presented during subsequent REM or NREM sleep. Mice that received auditory cueing during NREM but not REM sleep showed impaired fear memory upon later presentation of the auditory CS. These findings have implications for the use of cueing during sleep and advance our understanding of the role of REM and NREM sleep in memory consolidation.

Cross-modal attention influences auditory contrast sensitivity: Decreasing visual load improves auditory thresholds for amplitude- and frequency-modulated sounds.

We used a cross-modal dual task to examine how changing visual-task demands influenced auditory processing, namely auditory thresholds for amplitude- and frequency-modulated sounds. Observers had to attend to two consecutive intervals of sounds and report which interval contained the auditory stimulus that was modulated in amplitude (Experiment 1) or frequency (Experiment 2). During auditory-stimulus presentation, observers simultaneously attended to a rapid sequential visual presentation-two consecutive intervals of streams of visual letters-and had to report which interval contained a particular color (low load, demanding less attentional resources) or, in separate blocks of trials, which interval contained more of a target letter (high load, demanding more attentional resources). We hypothesized that if attention is a shared resource across vision and audition, an easier visual task should free up more attentional resources for auditory processing on an unrelated task, hence improving auditory thresholds. Auditory detection thresholds were lower-that is, auditory sensitivity was improved-for both amplitude- and frequency-modulated sounds when observers engaged in a less demanding (compared to a more demanding) visual task. In accord with previous work, our findings suggest that visual-task demands can influence the processing of auditory information on an unrelated concurrent task, providing support for shared attentional resources. More importantly, our results suggest that attending to information in a different modality, cross-modal attention, can influence basic auditory contrast sensitivity functions, highlighting potential similarities between basic mechanisms for visual and auditory attention.

Alpha-range visual and auditory stimulation reduces the perception of pain.

Alpha power is believed to have an inverse relationship with the perception of pain. Increasing alpha power through an external stimulus may, therefore, induce an analgesic effect. Here, we attempt to modulate the perception of a moderately painful acute laser stimulus by separately entraining three frequencies across the alpha band: 8, 10 and 12Hz. Participants were exposed to either visual or auditory stimulation at three frequencies in the alpha-band range and a control frequency. We collected verbal pain ratings of laser stimuli from participants following 10 minutes of flashing LED goggle stimulation and 10 minutes of binaural beat stimulation across the alpha range. Alterations in sleepiness, anxiety and negative mood were recorded following each auditory or visual alpha-rhythm stimulation session. A significant reduction in pain ratings was found after both the visual and the auditory stimulation across all three frequencies compared with the control condition. In the visual group, a significantly larger reduction was recorded following the 10-Hz stimulation than succeeding the 8- and 12-Hz conditions. This study suggests that a short presentation of auditory and visual stimuli, oscillating in the alpha range, have an analgesic effect on acute laser pain, with the largest effect following the 10-Hz visual stimulation. Pain reductions following stimulation in the alpha range are independent of sleepiness, anxiety, and negative moods. This study provides new behavioural evidence showing that visual and auditory entrainment of frequencies in the alpha-wave range can influence the perception of acute pain in humans.

Auditory capture of visual motion: effects on perception and discrimination.

We asked whether the perceived direction of visual motion and contrast thresholds for motion discrimination are influenced by the concurrent motion of an auditory sound source. Visual motion stimuli were counterphasing Gabor patches, whose net motion energy was manipulated by adjusting the contrast of the leftward-moving and rightward-moving components. The presentation of these visual stimuli was paired with the simultaneous presentation of auditory stimuli, whose apparent motion in 3D auditory space (rightward, leftward, static, no sound) was manipulated using interaural time and intensity differences, and Doppler cues. In experiment 1, observers judged whether the Gabor visual stimulus appeared to move rightward or leftward. In experiment 2, contrast discrimination thresholds for detecting the interval containing unequal (rightward or leftward) visual motion energy were obtained under the same auditory conditions. Experiment 1 showed that the perceived direction of ambiguous visual motion is powerfully influenced by concurrent auditory motion, such that auditory motion 'captured' ambiguous visual motion. Experiment 2 showed that this interaction occurs at a sensory stage of processing as visual contrast discrimination thresholds (a criterion-free measure of sensitivity) were significantly elevated when paired with congruent auditory motion. These results suggest that auditory and visual motion signals are integrated and combined into a supramodal (audiovisual) representation of motion.

Auditory presentation and synchronization in Adobe Flash and HTML5/JavaScript Web experiments

Substantial recent research has examined the accuracy of presentation durations and response time measurements for visually presented stimuli in Web-based experiments, with a general conclusion that accuracy is acceptable for most kinds of experiments. However, many areas of behavioral research use auditory stimuli instead of, or in addition to, visual stimuli. Much less is known about auditory accuracy using standard Web-based testing procedures. We used a millisecond-accurate Black Box Toolkit to measure the actual durations of auditory stimuli and the synchronization of auditory and visual presentation onsets. We examined the distribution of timings for 100 presentations of auditory and visual stimuli across two computers with difference specs, three commonly used browsers, and code written in either Adobe Flash or JavaScript. We also examined different coding options for attempting to synchronize the auditory and visual onsets. Overall, we found that auditory durations were very consistent, but that the lags between visual and auditory onsets varied substantially across browsers and computer systems.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.3758/s13428-016-0758-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Musicians have enhanced audiovisual multisensory binding: experience-dependent effects in the double-flash illusion.

Musical training is associated with behavioral and neurophysiological enhancements in auditory processing for both musical and nonmusical sounds (e.g., speech). Yet, whether the benefits of musicianship extend beyond enhancements to auditory-specific skills and impact multisensory (e.g., audiovisual) processing has yet to be fully validated. Here, we investigated multisensory integration of auditory and visual information in musicians and nonmusicians using a double-flash illusion, whereby the presentation of multiple auditory stimuli (beeps) concurrent with a single visual object (flash) induces an illusory perception of multiple flashes. We parametrically varied the onset asynchrony between auditory and visual events (leads and lags of ±300ms) to quantify participants' "temporal window" of integration, i.e., stimuli in which auditory and visual cues were fused into a single percept. Results show that musically trained individuals were both faster and more accurate at processing concurrent audiovisual cues than their nonmusician peers; nonmusicians had a higher susceptibility for responding to audiovisual illusions and perceived double flashes over an extended range of onset asynchronies compared to trained musicians. Moreover, temporal window estimates indicated that musicians' windows (<100ms) were ~2-3× shorter than nonmusicians' (~200ms), suggesting more refined multisensory integration and audiovisual binding. Collectively, findings indicate a more refined binding of auditory and visual cues in musically trained individuals. We conclude that experience-dependent plasticity of intensive musical experience extends beyond simple listening skills, improving multimodal processing and the integration of multiple sensory systems in a domain-general manner.

Individually customisable non-invasive head immobilisation system for non-human primates with an option for voluntary engagement

BackgroundHead immobilisation is often necessary for neuroscientific procedures. A number of Non-invasive Head Immobilisation Systems (NHIS) for monkeys are available, but the need remains for a feasible integrated system combining a broad range of essential features. New methodWe developed an individualised macaque NHIS addressing several animal welfare and scientific needs. The system comprises a customised-to-fit facemask that can be used separately or combined with a back piece to form a full-head helmet. The system permits presentation of visual and auditory stimuli during immobilisation and provides mouth access for reward. ResultsThe facemask was incorporated into an automated voluntary training system, allowing the animals to engage with it for increasing periods leading to full head immobilisation. We evaluated the system during performance on several auditory or visual behavioural tasks with testing sessions lasting 1.5–2h, used thermal imaging to monitor for and prevent pressure points, and measured head movement using MRI. Comparison with existing methodsA comprehensive evaluation of the system is provided in relation to several scientific and animal welfare requirements. Behavioural results were often comparable to those obtained with surgical implants. Cost–benefit analyses were conducted comparing the system with surgical options, highlighting the benefits of implementing the non-invasive option. ConclusionsThe system has a number of potential applications and could be an important tool in neuroscientific research, when direct access to the brain for neuronal recordings is not required, offering the opportunity to conduct non-invasive experiments while improving animal welfare and reducing reliance on surgically implanted head posts.

Multisensory signalling enhances pupil dilation.

Detecting and integrating information across the senses is an advantageous mechanism to efficiently respond to the environment. In this study, a simple auditory-visual detection task was employed to test whether pupil dilation, generally associated with successful target detection, could be used as a reliable measure for studying multisensory integration processing in humans. We recorded reaction times and pupil dilation in response to a series of visual and auditory stimuli, which were presented either alone or in combination. The results indicated faster reaction times and larger pupil diameter to the presentation of combined auditory and visual stimuli than the same stimuli when presented in isolation. Moreover, the responses to the multisensory condition exceeded the linear summation of the responses obtained in each unimodal condition. Importantly, faster reaction times corresponded to larger pupil dilation, suggesting that also the latter can be a reliable measure of multisensory processes. This study will serve as a foundation for the investigation of auditory-visual integration in populations where simple reaction times cannot be collected, such as developmental and clinical populations.

Neuronal correlates of sustained fear in the anterolateral part of the bed nucleus of stria terminalis

As part of the extended amygdala network, the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) was shown to be critically involved in processing sustained fear responses to diffuse and unpredictable threats. However, neuronal activity patterns in relation to sustained components of the fear response remain elusive, so far. We used a fear training paradigm with unpredictable pairing of conditioned and unconditioned stimuli allowing distinction between phasic and sustained components of conditioned fear, and recorded single units in the anterolateral part of the BNST (BNSTal) in freely behaving mice. An objective, non-biased cluster-analysis was performed for each identified single unit on specific waveform-, activity-, stimulus-dependent and LFP-related parameters. The analysis revealed three distinct neuronal subpopulations of biphasic-, sustained fear on- and fear off-neurons. Results show that activities of biphasic- and sustained fear on-neurons temporally coincide with the shift from phasic to sustained components of the fear response. Presentation of non-conditioned auditory stimuli resulted in a variety of neuronal responses in BNSTal with no indication of biphasic response profiles. It is suggested that fear conditioning sharpens neuronal response profiles in BNSTal with biphasic-cells signaling phasic and sustained fear. These results confirm the pivotal role of BNST in processing sustained fear on the neuronal level, thereby complementing pharmacological experimental animal and human imaging data.

Theta synchronization between medial prefrontal cortex and cerebellum is associated with adaptive performance of associative learning behavior

Associative learning is thought to require coordinated activities among distributed brain regions. For example, to direct behavior appropriately, the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) must encode and maintain sensory information and then interact with the cerebellum during trace eyeblink conditioning (TEBC), a commonly-used associative learning model. However, the mechanisms by which these two distant areas interact remain elusive. By simultaneously recording local field potential (LFP) signals from the mPFC and the cerebellum in guinea pigs undergoing TEBC, we found that theta-frequency (5.0–12.0 Hz) oscillations in the mPFC and the cerebellum became strongly synchronized following presentation of auditory conditioned stimulus. Intriguingly, the conditioned eyeblink response (CR) with adaptive timing occurred preferentially in the trials where mPFC-cerebellum theta coherence was stronger. Moreover, both the mPFC-cerebellum theta coherence and the adaptive CR performance were impaired after the disruption of endogenous orexins in the cerebellum. Finally, association of the mPFC -cerebellum theta coherence with adaptive CR performance was time-limited occurring in the early stage of associative learning. These findings suggest that the mPFC and the cerebellum may act together to contribute to the adaptive performance of associative learning behavior by means of theta synchronization.

Electrocorticographic mapping of expressive language function without requiring the patient to speak: A report of three cases.

ObjectivePatients requiring resective brain surgery often undergo functional brain mapping during perioperative planning to localize expressive language areas. Currently, all established protocols to perform such mapping require substantial time and patient participation during verb generation or similar tasks. These issues can make language mapping impractical in certain clinical circumstances (e.g., during awake craniotomies) or with certain populations (e.g., pediatric patients). Thus, it is important to develop new techniques that reduce mapping time and the requirement for active patient participation. Several neuroscientific studies reported that the mere auditory presentation of speech stimuli can engage not only receptive but also expressive language areas. Here, we tested the hypothesis that submission of electrocorticographic (ECoG) recordings during a short speech listening task to an appropriate analysis procedure can identify eloquent expressive language cortex without requiring the patient to speak.MethodsThree patients undergoing temporary placement of subdural electrode grids passively listened to stories while we recorded their ECoG activity. We identified those sites whose activity in the broadband gamma range (70–170 Hz) changed immediately after presentation of the speech stimuli with respect to a prestimulus baseline.ResultsOur analyses revealed increased broadband gamma activity at distinct locations in the inferior frontal cortex, superior temporal gyrus, and/or perisylvian areas in all three patients and premotor and/or supplementary motor areas in two patients. The sites in the inferior frontal cortex that we identified with our procedure were either on or immediately adjacent to locations identified using electrical cortical stimulation (ECS) mapping.ConclusionsThe results of this study provide encouraging preliminary evidence that it may be possible that a brief and practical protocol can identify expressive language areas without requiring the patient to speak. This protocol could provide the clinician with a map of expressive language cortex within a few minutes. This may be useful as an adjunct to ECS interrogation or as an alternative to mapping using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In conclusion, with further development and validation in more subjects, the approach presented here could help in identifying expressive language areas in situations where patients cannot speak in response to task instructions.

Gender Differences in Cerebral Processing of Audio-Visual Information

Background: In daily life, visual information plays an important role to improve accuracy of auditory perception, and such phenomenon might be explained by audio-visual integration. However, audio-visual integration differs between genders, i.e., female tends to perceive voice with mouth movement more accurately. In this study, we examined gender differences of cerebral processing of audio-visual information. Methods: Cerebral processing was examined in male and female participants under different audio-visual conditions: 1) Auditory (A) condition: presentation of white-noise (noise) or a vowel (/a/ or /i/) pronounced by a male; 2) Visual (V) condition: presentation of a face image pronouncing a vowel ([a] or [i]), 3) Audio-Visual (AV) condition: simultaneous presentation of auditory (noise or vowel) and visual stimuli. Participants were asked to press a button when the vowel /a/ or noise was presented in the A or AV condition. Subtracted auditory ERPs in the AV condition (congruent: /a/ with [a]-[a] and incongruent: /a/ with [i]-[i]) were compared to ERPs in the A condition (auditory /a/). Results: In the AV condition, amplitude of auditory P2 in the male participants was smaller than that in the females, whether the stimulus set was congruent or incongruent. The lower P2 amplitude in males may have been caused by overlapping of negative components, which may be related to selective attention. Subtracted visual ERPs in the AV condition (congruent: [a] with /a/-/a/ and incongruent: [a] with /i/-/i/) were compared to ERPs in the V condition (visual [a]). Amplitude of visual N170 to congruent stimuli was smaller than that for alone visual stimuli only for the females. Conclusion: Lower amplitude of the N170 may reflect enhanced facial processing in females. Gender differences in audio-visual information processing were discussed. Keywords: Audio-visual integration, event-related potential, gender difference, N170.

Phonological processing in speech perception: What do sonority differences tell us?

Previous research has associated the inferior frontal and posterior temporal brain regions with a number of phonological processes. In order to identify how these specific brain regions contribute to phonological processing, we manipulated subsyllabic phonological complexity and stimulus modality during speech perception using fMRI. Subjects passively attended to visual or auditory pseudowords. Similar to previous studies, a bilateral network of cortical regions was recruited during the presentation of visual and auditory stimuli. Moreover, pseudowords recruited a similar network of regions as words and letters. Few regions in the whole-brain results revealed neural processing differences associated with phonological complexity independent of modality of presentation. In an ROI analysis, the only region sensitive to phonological complexity was the posterior part of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFGpo), with the complexity effect only present for print. In sum, the sensitivity of phonological brain areas depends on the modality of stimulus presentation and task demands.

高分解能周波数解析法を用いたASSR-based BCIのための基礎的研究

The auditory steady state response (ASSR) is elicited by repetitive presentation of auditory stimuli. Recently, the ASSR is used in EEG-based Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) paradigm. In this study, we have demonstrated efficacy of the Non-Harmonic Analysis (NHA) compared with the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) for ASSR-based BCI communication. The NHA is not much influenced by the analysis window length.

Effects of masker type, sentence context, and listener age on speech recognition performance in 1-back listening tasks.

Studies have shown that older listeners with normal hearing have greater difficulty understanding speech in noisy environments than younger listeners even during simple assessments where listeners respond to auditory stimuli immediately after presentation. Older listeners may have increased difficulty understanding speech in challenging listening situations that require the recall of prior sentences during the presentation of new auditory stimuli. This study compared the performance of older and younger normal-hearing listeners in 0-back trials, which required listeners to respond to the most recent sentence, and 1-back trials, which required the recall of the sentence preceding the most recent. Speech stimuli were high-context and anomalous sentences with four types of maskers. The results show that older listeners have greater difficulty in the 1-back task than younger listeners with all masker types, even when SNR was adjusted to produce 80% correct performance in the 0-back task for both groups. The differences between the groups in the 1-back task may be explained by differences in working memory for the noise and spatially separated speech maskers but not in the conditions with co-located speech maskers, suggesting that older listeners have increased difficulty in memory-intensive speech perception tasks involving high levels of informational masking.

Impairment of thalamo-cortical network activities in animal models of multiple sclerosis

Introduction: Infiltration of immune cells, demyelination, axonal damage and neuronal degeneration are all indicative of the impaired interplay between the immuneandnervous systemduringmultiple sclerosis (MS). The neuroinflammatory events and resulting alterations in neuronal excitability can cause changes in synaptic network function. The aim of this study was to evaluate the hypothesis that distinct histopathological changes like inflammation or demyelination can lead to alterations in neuronal network activities in thalamo-cortical network system. Methods: Control and cuprizone treated mice (general demyelination in the CNS) unilaterally equipped with micro-wire arrays (MWA, 1 array, 8 electrodes and one reference/array per brain region) in the 4th layer of the auditory cortex (AC-IV) and ventral part of the Medial Geniculate Nucleus (MGNv) of the thalamus. Unit activities were recorded before, during and after the presentation of auditory stimuli (2.5 and 10 kHz, 6 times each). The spikes of individual neurons were sorted by a time-amplitude window discrimination and principal component analysis and verified through quantification of cluster analysis. Baseline as well as stimulus-related neuronal firing rates were analyzed and compared between the demyelinated, remyelinating and remyelinated mice. Results: Compared to control mice, demyelinated mice show decreased neuronal activities, but with the time during remyelination, the activity comes back. In addition to that, the control mice show neuronal response to high frequency (10 kHz) auditory stimuli, but the cuprizone treated mice are not able to discriminate between high (10 kHz) and low frequency (2.5 kHz) auditory stimuli. Conclusion: Neurons in auditory cortex and auditory thalamus possess response specificity and discrimination properties. But after cuprizone treatment, sensory responsiveness is abolished and slowly recovers with remyelination, although discrimination properties and specificity remain impaired. Acknowledgements: This work is supported by the CRC TR 128, B6, Meuth, Pape and Budde.

Radical antioxidants limit blood–brain barrier activation and ameliorate disease in models of multiple sclerosis

Introduction: Infiltration of immune cells, demyelination, axonal damage and neuronal degeneration are all indicative of the impaired interplay between the immuneandnervous systemduringmultiple sclerosis (MS). The neuroinflammatory events and resulting alterations in neuronal excitability can cause changes in synaptic network function. The aim of this study was to evaluate the hypothesis that distinct histopathological changes like inflammation or demyelination can lead to alterations in neuronal network activities in thalamo-cortical network system. Methods: Control and cuprizone treated mice (general demyelination in the CNS) unilaterally equipped with micro-wire arrays (MWA, 1 array, 8 electrodes and one reference/array per brain region) in the 4th layer of the auditory cortex (AC-IV) and ventral part of the Medial Geniculate Nucleus (MGNv) of the thalamus. Unit activities were recorded before, during and after the presentation of auditory stimuli (2.5 and 10 kHz, 6 times each). The spikes of individual neurons were sorted by a time-amplitude window discrimination and principal component analysis and verified through quantification of cluster analysis. Baseline as well as stimulus-related neuronal firing rates were analyzed and compared between the demyelinated, remyelinating and remyelinated mice. Results: Compared to control mice, demyelinated mice show decreased neuronal activities, but with the time during remyelination, the activity comes back. In addition to that, the control mice show neuronal response to high frequency (10 kHz) auditory stimuli, but the cuprizone treated mice are not able to discriminate between high (10 kHz) and low frequency (2.5 kHz) auditory stimuli. Conclusion: Neurons in auditory cortex and auditory thalamus possess response specificity and discrimination properties. But after cuprizone treatment, sensory responsiveness is abolished and slowly recovers with remyelination, although discrimination properties and specificity remain impaired. Acknowledgements: This work is supported by the CRC TR 128, B6, Meuth, Pape and Budde.

See hear: psychological effects of music and music-video during treadmill running.

There is a paucity of work addressing the distractive, affect-enhancing, and motivational influences of music and video in combination during exercise. We examined the effects of music and music-and-video on a range of psychological and psychophysical variables during treadmill running at intensities above and below ventilatory threshold (VT). Participants (N = 24) exercised at 10% of maximal capacity below VT and 10% above under music-only, music-and-video, and control conditions. There was a condition × intensity × time interaction for perceived activation and state motivation, and an intensity × time interaction for state attention, perceived exertion (RPE), and affective valence. The music-and-video condition elicited the highest levels of dissociation, lowest RPE, and most positive affective responses regardless of exercise intensity. Attentional manipulations influence psychological and psychophysical variables at exercise intensities above and below VT, and this effect is enhanced by the combined presentation of auditory and visual stimuli.