Search

The attunement of speech perception/discrimination to the properties of one's native language is a crucial step in speech and language development at early ages. Studying these processes in young children with a history of institutionalization is of great interest, as being raised in institutional care (IC) may lead to lags in language development. The sample consisted of 82 children, split into two age groups. The younger age group (<12 months) included 17 children from the IC and 17 children from the biological-family-care (BFC) group. The older group (>12 months) consisted of 23 children from the IC group, and 25 children from the BFC group. A double-oddball paradigm with three consonant-vowel syllables was used, utilizing native (Russian) and foreign (Hindi) languages. A Mismatch Negativity (MMN) component was elicited within a 125–225 ms time window in the frontal-central electrode. Findings demonstrate the absence of MMN effect in the younger age group, regardless of the living environment. Children in the older group are sensitive to native deviants and do not differentiate foreign language contrasts. No significant differences were observed between the IC and BFC groups for children older than 12 months, indicating that children in the IC have typical phonological processing. The results show that the MMN effect is not registered in Russian speaking children before the age of 12 months, regardless of their living environment. At 20 months of age, institutionally reared children show no evidence of delays in phonetic development despite a limited experience of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much evidence suggests that hypofunction of the N -methyl- d -aspartate glutamate receptor (NMDAR) may contribute broadly towards a subset of molecular, cognitive and behavioral abnormalities common among psychiatric and developmental diseases. However, little is known about the specific molecular changes that lead to NMDAR dysfunction. As such, personalized approaches to remediating NMDAR dysfunction based on a specific etiology remains a challenge. Sarcoma tyrosine kinase (Src) serves as a hub for multiple signaling mechanisms affecting GluN2 phosphorylation and can be disrupted by convergent alterations of various signaling pathways. We recently showed reduced Src signaling in post mortem tissue from schizophrenia patients, despite increased MK-801 binding and NMDA receptor complex expression in the postsynaptic density (PSD). These data suggest that Src dysregulation may be an important underlying mechanism responsible for reduced glutamate signaling. Despite this evidence for a central role of Src in NMDAR signaling, little is known about how reductions in Src activity might regulate phenotypic changes in cognition and behavior. As such, the current study sought to characterize behavioral and electrophysiological phenotypes in mice heterozygous for the Src Acl gene (Src+/− mice). Src+/− mice demonstrated decreased sociability and working memory relative to Src+/+ (WT) mice while no significant differences were seen on locomotive activity and anxiety-related behavior. In relation to WT mice, Src+/− mice showed decreased mid-latency P20 auditory event related potential (aERP) amplitudes, decreased mismatch negativity (MMN) and decreased evoked gamma power, which was only present in males. These data indicate that Src+/− mice are a promising new model to help understand the pathophysiology of these electrophysiological, behavioral and cognitive changes. As such, we propose that Src+/− mice can be used in the future to evaluate potential therapeutic approaches by targeting increased Src activity as a common final pathway for multiple etiologies of SCZ and other diseases characterized by reduced glutamate function. • Sarcoma tyrosine kinase (Src) is a hub for GluN2 phosphorylation and can be disrupted by schizophrenia susceptibility pathways. • Src+/- mice demonstrated decreased sociability and working memory relative to Src+/+ (WT) mice. • Src+/- mice show decreased P20 event related potential, decreased mismatch negativity and decreased evoked gamma power. • Src+/- mice express behavioral, cognitive, and electrophysiological phenotypes consistent with those in schizophrenia. • Src+/- mice are a promising new model to help understand the pathophysiology of negative symptoms of schizophrenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Anxious hypervigilance sensitizes early brain responses to unrelated stimuli. • Perceptual learning is affected only in individuals with high state or trait anxiety. • Differences in the modulation of neural processes confirm anxiety as a dimensional construct. A recent neurocomputational model proposed that anxious hypervigilance impedes perceptual learning. This view is supported by the observed modulation of the mismatch negativity (MMN), a biomarker of implicit perceptual learning processes, in anxiety disorders. However, other studies found that anxious states sensitize brain responses with no impact on perceptual learning. The present research aimed to elucidate the impact of anticipatory anxiety on early stimulus processing in the healthy population. We used electroencephalography to investigate the impact of unpredictable threat on the amplitude of the MMN and other components of the auditory evoked response in healthy participants during a passive auditory oddball task. We found a general sensitization of early components of the auditory evoked response and changes in subjective and autonomic measures of anxiety during threat periods. The MMN amplitude did not differ during threat, compared to safe periods. However, this difference was modulated by the level of state or trait anxiety. We propose that anxiety sensitizes early brain responses to unspecific environmental stimuli but affects implicit perceptual learning processes only when an individual is located at the higher end of the anxiety spectrum. This view might distinguish between an adaptive role of anxiety on processing efficiency and its detrimental impact on implicit perceptual learning observed in psychiatric conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The human brain's ability to extract and encode temporal regularities and to predict the timing of upcoming events is critical for music and speech perception. This work addresses how these mechanisms deal with different levels of temporal complexity, here the number of distinct durations in rhythmic patterns. We use electroencephalography (EEG) to relate the mismatch negativity (MMN), a proxy of neural prediction error, to a measure of information content of rhythmic sequences, the Shannon entropy. Within each of three conditions, participants listened to repeatedly presented standard rhythms of five tones (four inter‐onset intervals) and of a given level of entropy: zero (isochronous), medium entropy (two distinct interval durations), or high entropy (four distinct interval durations). Occasionally, the fourth tone was moved forward in time that is it occurred 100 ms (small deviation) or 300 ms early (large deviation). According to the predictive coding framework, high‐entropy stimuli are more difficult to model for the brain, resulting in less confident predictions and yielding smaller prediction errors for deviant sounds. Our results support this hypothesis, showing a gradual decrease in MMN amplitude as a function of entropy, but only for small timing deviants. For large timing deviants, in contrast, a modulation of activity in the opposite direction was observed for the earlier N1 component, known to also be sensitive to sudden changes in directed attention. Our results suggest the existence of a fine‐grained neural mechanism that weights neural prediction error to the complexity of rhythms and that mostly manifests in the absence of directed attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Cantonese-speaking children with ASD manifested impaired speech perception. • Cantonese children with ASD did not show the advantage in non-speech perception. • Language background (i.e., Cantonese) might shape the perceptive abilities. The present study compared how Cantonese-speaking children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their typically developing counterparts perceived speech pitch and non-speech pitch information using ERP measurements. Sixteen children with ASD (mean age = 10.42 years, SD = 2.12 years) and sixteen normal controls (mean age = 9.48 years, SD =.86 years) participated in two experiments, in which Cantonese lexical tone contrasts and non-speech pitch variations were presented to children following an oddball paradigm when they watched a silent movie. The results showed that: 1) When processing speech pitch contour, the two groups did not differ in the amplitude of mismatch response (p-MMR), while typically developing controls showed larger mismatch negativity (MMN) responses than children with ASD. In the processing of speech pitch height, more positive p-MMR was observed among children with ASD than among normal controls and stronger MMN was found for typically developing children than for children with ASD. 2) For the processing of non-speech pitch, MMN rather than p-MMR was observed and the two groups did not differ significantly with each other in the amplitudes of MMN. These results indicated that Cantonese-speaking children with ASD manifested impaired ability when processing speech pitch information (i.e., lexical tone), which was in line with previous research. However, they did not show the advantage in processing non-speech or auditory pitch information, which was not in agreement with the previous studies. Results were discussed from the perspective of how language background (i.e., Cantonese) might shape the perceptive abilities of children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The ability to determine the location of the sound source is often important for effective communication. However, it is not clear how the localisation is affected by background noise. In the current study, localisation in quiet versus noise was evaluated in adults both behaviourally, and using MMN and P3b. Design: The speech token/da/was presented in a multi-deviant oddball paradigm in quiet and in presence of speech babble at +5 dB SNR. The deviants were presented at locations that differed from the standard by 30°, 60° and 90°. Study sample: Sixteen normal hearing adults between the age range of 18–35 years participated in the study. Results: The results showed that participants were significantly faster and more accurate at identifying deviants presented at 60° and 90° as compared to 30°. Neither reaction times nor electrophysiological measures (MMN/P3b) were affected by the background noise. The deviance magnitude (30°, 60° and 90°) did not affect the MMN amplitude, but the smaller deviant (30°) generated P3b with smaller amplitude. Conclusions: Under the stimulus paradigm and measures employed in this study, localisation ability as effectively sampled appeared resistant to speech babble interference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sleep loss has a major effect on cognitive tasks that are dependent on the maintenance of active sustained attention. This study examines the effects of sleep deprivation on automatic information processing, more specifically, its effect on processes leading to involuntary auditory attention capture by task-irrelevant auditory events. Two experiments were run. In the first, 13 participants were totally sleep-deprived (TSD); in the second, 16 participants were partially sleep-deprived (PSD), sleeping only four hours. Event-related potentials were recorded while participants discriminated the duration of equiprobable short and long auditory tones. At rare times, a small change to the pitch of these stimuli occurred. This deviant was however irrelevant to the duration detection task. As expected, TSD had a significant effect on the attention-dependent duration detection task; performance was worse and the P3b, associated with ease of detection, was attenuated. PSD had a similar, but reduced effect. Critically, the small pitch deviant resulted in less behavioural distraction following TSD compared to normal sleep.Consistent with this, the P3a, associated with the attention capture process, was significantly reduced following both TSD and PSD. Processes related to the passive switching of attention to potentially critical, but unattended, stimulus events are moderated by sleep deprivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Auditory mismatch negativity (MMN) assessed with phonetic (vowel) stimuli. • Early schizophrenia patients did not exhibit a reduced MMN (vs. controls). • Chronic schizophrenia patients did exhibit a reduced MMN (vs. controls). Abstract Auditory change detection, as indexed by the EEG-derived mismatch negativity, has been demonstrated to be dysfunctional in chronic schizophrenia using both pure-tone and speech (phoneme) sounds. It is unclear, however, whether reduced MMN amplitudes to speech sound deviants are observed within the first 5 years of the illness. The present study investigated MMNs elicited by across-vowel (phoneme) change in early schizophrenia (ESZ; Experiment 1) as well as chronic schizophrenia (CSZ; Experiment 2). In both experiments, clinical and control participants were presented the Finnish phoneme /e/ (standard; P =.90) and the Finnish phoneme /ö/ (deviant; P =.10) within an oddball paradigm. In experiment 2 we report significantly reduced MMN amplitudes in CSZ relative to HCs, but no differences were found when comparing ESZ and HC in experiment 1. Additionally, in our clinical samples, MMN amplitudes were correlated with symptom scores. These findings suggest that early detection of phonetic change may be impaired in chronic schizophrenia, but not early in the progression of the illness. As MMN reductions only emerged in patients with a longer course of illness, and appeared to change with symptom severity, this suggests a dynamic change in the early auditory processing of language over time in schizophrenia. Graphical abstract Image, graphical abstract [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although research on the mismatch negativity (MMN) has been ongoing for 40 years, the generation process of the MMN remains largely unknown. In this study, we used a single-trial electro-encephalography (EEG)-functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) coupling method which can analyze neural activity with both high temporal and high spatial resolution and thus assess the generation process of the MMN. We elicited the MMN with an auditory oddball paradigm while recording simultaneous EEG and fMRI. We divided the MMN into five equal-durational phases. Utilizing the single-trial variability of the MMN, we analyzed the neural generators of the five phases, thereby determining the spatiotemporal generation process of the MMN. We found two distinct bottom-up prediction error propagations: first from the auditory cortex to the motor areas and then from the auditory cortex to the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Our results support the regularity-violation hypothesis of MMN generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use a "varying standards" oddball paradigm and compare two phonetically differing conditions to find evidence that the auditory cortex has access to discrete phonological representations when making predictions about incoming speech sounds. Brain responses were recorded with a 128-electrode EEG system as subjects passively listened to synthetic speech sounds from a /dæ/-/tæ/ continuum. Deviant stimuli were compared to a control condition to obtain a mismatch negativity (MMN) response, indicative of a "surprise" at a stimulus that deviates from the memory trace. We tested two conditions with phonetically different varying standards – a "low-T" condition with VOT values of 60, 65, and 70 ms, and a "high-T" condition with VOT values of 75, 80, and 85 ms. The amplitude of the mismatch response is generally sensitive to acoustic distance. If the memory trace generated by the auditory cortex contains phonetic information about the standards, then a difference in mismatch amplitude is expected. However, if a phonological memory trace is used, every standard will be represented identically and no difference in mismatch amplitude will be observed. We found no distance effect in our results, indicating an absence of fine-grained phonetic information. This supports the claim that the auditory cortex has access to phonological category representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deficits in N-methyl-d-aspartate-type (NMDAR) function contribute to cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, particularly dysfunction in neuroplasticity, defined as reduced learning during training on exercises that place implicit, increasing demands on early sensory (auditory and visual) information processing. Auditory mismatch negativity (MMN) can be both a target engagement biomarker for the NMDAR and a proxy measure of neurophysiological plasticity. This review covers the evidence for using NMDAR modulator and related compounds for enhancement of cognition, with a particular focus on early auditory processing/plasticity. Compounds covered include glycine site agonists, glycine and system A-type transporter inhibitors, d-amino acid oxidase inhibitors, memantine and nicotinic alpha-7 acetylcholine receptor agonists. As opposed to daily treatment studies focusing on schizophrenia in general, intermittent, non-daily treatment combining NMDAR modulators with neuroplasticity-based paradigms, using MMN as target-engagement biomarkers show promise as treatments to both remediate plasticity deficits and overall functional deficits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An acoustic stimulus elicits an electroencephalographic response called auditory event-related potential (ERP). When some members of a stream of standard auditory stimuli are replaced randomly by a deviant stimulus and this stream is presented to a subject who ignores the stimuli, two different ERPs to deviant and standard stimuli are recorded. If the ERP to standard stimuli is subtracted from the ERP to deviant stimuli, the difference potential (DP) waveform typically exhibits a series of negative-positive-negative deflections called mismatch negativity (MMN), P3a, and reorienting negativity (RON), which are associated with pre-attentive change detection, involuntary attention switching, and reorienting of attention, respectively. The aim of the present study was to investigate how these pre-attentive processes are affected if the change occurs earlier than its usual timing implied by isochronous standard stimuli. In the MMN paradigm employed, 15% of the standards were randomly replaced by deviant stimuli which differed either in their pitch, their earlier onset time, or in both. Event-related responses to these three deviants [timely pitch change (RTP), earlier onset (REO), earlier pitch change (REP)] and to standards (RS) were recorded from 10 reading subjects. To maintain identical stimulation histories for the responses subtracted from each other, "deviant-standard" difference potentials (DP) for "timely" and "early" pitch deviances were derived as follows: DPTP = RTP − RS and DPEP = REP − REO. Interestingly, the MMN components of the DPs to timely and early pitch deviances had similar amplitudes, indicating that regularity of stimulus timing does not provide any benefit for the pre-attentive auditory change detection mechanism. However, different scalp current density (SCD) dynamics of the MMN/P3a complexes, elicited by timely and early pitch deviances, suggested that an auditory change in a stimulus occurring earlier-than-usual initiates a faster and more effective call-for-attention and causes stronger attention switching than a timely change. SCD results also indicated that the temporal, frontal, and parietal MMN components are simultaneously present rather than emerging sequentially in time, supporting the MMN models based on parallel deviance processing in the respective cortices. Similarity of the RONs to timely and early pitch deviances indicated that reorienting of attention is of the same strength in two cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines brain responses to boundary effects with respect to Mandarin lexical tone continua for three groups of adult listeners: (1) native English speakers who took advanced Mandarin courses; (2) naïve English speakers; and (3) native Mandarin speakers. A cross-boundary tone pair and a within-category tone pair derived from tonal contrasts (Mandarin Tone 1/Tone 4; Tone 2/Tone 3) with equal physical/acoustical distance were used in an auditory oddball paradigm. For native Mandarin speakers, the cross-category deviant elicited a larger MMN over left hemisphere sensors and larger P300 responses over both hemispheres relative to within-category deviants, suggesting categorical perception of tones at both pre-attentive and attentional stages of processing. In contrast, native English speakers and Mandarin learners did not demonstrate categorical effects. However, learners of Mandarin showed larger P300 responses than the other two groups, suggesting heightened sensitivity to tones and possibly greater attentional resource allocation to tone identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence from a neuropsychological test revealed that interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs) may have significant impact on cognitive performance. Sometimes, neuropsychological tests may not be sensitive to detection of mild cognitive changes. We applied P300 and mismatch negativity (MMN) to detect mild cognitive changes caused by small amount of IEDs. Sixty-seven adult epilepsy patients and participants were divided into six groups according to different IEDs index. The patients with IED index greater than 7.5% showed longer latency and lower amplitude in the test of P300 and MMN than patients with IED index less than 7.5%, which indicated mild impaired cognitive function. The negative effect of IED index greater than 10% on cognitive has been found by neuropsychological test, whereas the mild negative effect of IED index greater than 7.5% has only been found by P300 and MMN. So, P300 and MMN may be more sensitive than neuropsychological tests to detect mild cognitive impairment caused by IEDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language-related event-related potential (ERP) components such as the N400 have traditionally been associated with linguistic or cognitive functional interpretations. By contrast, it has been considerably more difficult to relate these components to neurobiologically grounded accounts of language. Here, we propose a theoretical framework based on a predictive coding architecture, within which negative language-related ERP components such as the N400 can be accounted for in a neurobiologically plausible manner. Specifically, we posit that the amplitude of negative language-related ERP components reflects precision-weighted prediction error signals, i.e., prediction errors weighted by the relevance of the information source leading to the error. From this perspective, precision has a direct link to cue validity in a particular language and, thereby, to relevance of individual linguistic features for internal model updating. We view components such as the N400 and LAN as members of a family with similar functional characteristics and suggest that latency and topography differences between these components reflect the locus of prediction errors and model updating within a hierarchically organized cortical predictive coding architecture. This account has the potential to unify findings from the full range of the N400 literature, including word-level, sentence-, and discourse-level results as well as cross-linguistic differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIg) are an efficacious treatment for chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP) and multifocal motor neuropathy (MMN). IVIg is considered in patients who have a high suspicion of an inflammatory neuropathy, but do not meet diagnostic criteria. The objective of this retrospective study was to assess which diagnostic results led to the decision to administer IVIg and to determine the rate of improvement. We included consecutive patients suspected of CIDP or MMN who did not meet the electrophysiological EFNS/PNS criteria and received IVIg treatment. Patients were included in a tertiary referral center for inflammatory neuropathies and motor neuron diseases. Thirty-five patients were included; 19 patients suspected of CIDP and 16 suspected of MMN. Nerve hypertrophy on ultrasound (80% of patients suspected of CIDP and 67% of patients suspected of MMN) and/or elevated cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) protein (53% of patients suspected of CIDP and 45% of patients suspected of MMN) were the most frequent findings that supported the diagnosis. Thirteen patients suspected of CIDP (68%) and five patients suspected of MMN (31%) responded to treatment. There was no association between the presence of the EFNS/PNS supportive criteria, including nerve hypertrophy on ultrasound, and treatment response. In conclusion, enlarged nerves on ultrasound and elevated CSF protein were the main reasons to start IVIg treatment in our study, although findings did not correlate with treatment response. In tertiary referral clinics, IVIg treatment could be considered in selected patients with a high suspicion of an inflammatory neuropathy, especially in those suspected of CIDP. Highlights • Enlarged nerves on ultrasound and elevated CSF protein where the main reasons to start IVIg. • There was a higher rate of improvement in patients suspected of CIDP. • There was no association between the presence of supportive criteria and treatment response. • There was no association between ultrasound results and treatment response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract According to the hypothesis of auditory compensation, blind listeners are more sensitive to auditory input than sighted listeners. In the current study, we employed the passive oddball paradigm to investigate the effect of blindness on listeners' mismatch responses to Mandarin lexical tones, consonants, and vowels. Twelve blind and twelve sighted age- and verbal IQ-matched adults with normal hearing participated in this study. Our results indicated that blind listeners possibly had a more efficient pre-attentive processing (shorter MMN peak latency) of lexical tones in the tone-dominant hemisphere (i.e., the right hemisphere); and that they exhibited greater sensitivity (larger MMN amplitude) when processing phonemes (consonants and/or vowels) at the pre-attentive stage in both hemispheres compared with sighted individuals. However, we observed longer MMN and P3a peak latencies during phoneme processing in the blind versus control participants, indicating that blind listeners may be slower in terms of pre-attentive processing and involuntary attention switching when processing phonemes. This could be due to a lack of visual experience in the production and perception of phonemes. In a word, the current study revealed a two-sided influence of blindness on Mandarin speech perception. Highlights • The influence of blindness on Mandarin speech processing was two-sided. • Blind people had a more efficient pre-attentive processing of lexical tones and a more sensitive processing of phonemes. • Blind people were slower in pre-attentive processing of phonemes and involuntary attention switching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We suggest that music perception is an active act of listening, providing an irresistible epistemic offering. When listening to music we constantly generate plausible hypotheses about what could happen next, while actively attending to music resolves the ensuing uncertainty. Within the predictive coding framework, we present a novel formulation of precision filtering and attentional selection, which explains why some lower-level auditory, and even higher-level music-syntactic processes elicited by irregular events are relatively exempt from top-down predictive processes. We review findings providing unique evidence for the attentional selection of salient auditory features. This formulation suggests that 'listening' is a more active process than traditionally conceived in models of perception. Highlights Music provides a remarkable 'epistemic offering': it continuously satisfies our need to resolve uncertainty, thereby underwriting its rewarding nature. Within the predictive coding framework, there are (first-order) predictions of perceptual content and (second-order) predictions of the precision (i.e., confidence or certainty) that are ascribed to first-order predictions. The capacity to update beliefs about precision endows us with the ability to attend selectively to uncertainty resolving, epistemically rewarding streams of information, as exemplified in actively listening to music. We consider the evidence for 'active listening' in terms of increased rates of evidence accumulation (i.e., reduced latencies of the early right anterior negativity), when subjects are informed about impending music-syntactic violations. This enactive take on music perception fits comfortably with the notion that our predictions of music are based on how we would generate it ourselves; thereby accounting for the phenomenon of 'musical groove'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract A 'pattern alternation paradigm' has been previously used in human ERP recordings to investigate the brain encoding of complex auditory regularities, but prior studies on regularity encoding in animal models to examine mechanisms of adaptation of auditory neuronal responses have used primarily oddball stimulus sequences to study stimulus-specific adaptation alone. In order to examine the sensitivity of neuronal adaptation to expected and unexpected events embedded in a complex sound sequence, we used a similar patterned sequence of sounds. We recorded single unit activity and compared neuronal responses in the rat inferior colliculus (IC) to sound stimuli conforming to pattern alternation regularity with those to stimuli in which occasional sound repetitions violated that alternation. Results show that some neurons in the rat inferior colliculus are sensitive to the history of patterned stimulation and to violations of patterned regularity, demonstrating that there is a population of subcortical neurons, located as early as the level of the midbrain, that can detect more complex stimulus regularities than previously supposed and that are as sensitive to complex statistics as some neurons in primary auditory cortex. Our findings indicate that these pattern-sensitive neurons can extract temporal and spectral regularities between successive acoustic stimuli. This is important because the extraction of regularities from the sound sequences will result in the development of expectancies for future sounds and hence, the present results are compatible with predictive coding models. Our results demonstrate that some collicular neurons, located as early as in the midbrain level, are involved in the generation and shaping of prediction errors in ways not previously considered and thus, the present findings challenge the prevailing view that perceptual organization of sound only emerges at the auditory cortex level. Highlights • Auditory midbrain, i.e., IC neurons are sensitive to complex statistics. • IC neurons are sensitive to stimulation history and violations of patterned regularity. • IC neurons extract spectral and temporal regularities between successive stimuli. • Results are consistent with a hierarchical model of predictive coding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • MMN for vowel-speech sounds was larger and earlier than for pure-tone sounds. • MMN was not correlated with age for vowel-speech sounds, but for pure-tone sounds. • MMN was not correlated with educational level. • The factors influencing on MMN are different between vowel-speech sounds and pure-tone sounds. Abstract To investigate the characteristics of speech perception, we evaluated the differences in mismatch negativity (MMN) between vowel change and frequency change. Additionally, we examined the effects of gender, age, and educational length on MMN. Forty healthy adults (21 females), who were native Japanese speakers, participated in the study. A Japanese vowel-speech pair (standard/a/vs. deviant/o/) and a pure-tone pair (standard 1000 Hz vs. deviant 1050 Hz) were constructed. MMN elicited by vowel-speech sounds was larger and earlier compared with pure-tone sounds. Larger and earlier MMNs for vowel-speech sounds than for pure-tone sounds suggest different processing of linguistically relevant information at the early stage in the auditory cortex. In conclusion, the factors influencing on MMN are different between vowel-speech sounds and pure-tone sounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The maturation of 5–6-year-old children’s auditory discrimination – indicated by the development of the auditory event-related-potentials (ERPs) – has not been previously studied in longitudinal settings. For the first time, we present here the results based on extensive dataset collected from 75 children. We followed the 5- to 6-year-olds for 20 months and measured their ERPs four times with the same multifeature paradigm with phonemic stimuli. The amplitude of the mismatch negativity (MMN) response increased during this time for vowel, vowel duration and frequency changes. Furthermore, the P3a component started to mature toward adult-like positivity for the vowel, intensity and frequency deviants and the late discriminative negativity (LDN) component decreased with age for vowel and intensity deviants. All the changes in the components seemed to happen during the second follow-up year, when Finnish children are taught letter symbols and other preliminary academic skills before going to school at the age of seven. Therefore, further studies are needed to clarify if these changes in the auditory discrimination are purely age-related or due to increasing linguistic knowledge of the children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Anomalous neural prosody discrimination in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). • Impaired orienting to prosodic changes in children with ASD. • Sluggish perceptual prosody discrimination in children with ASD. Abstract Objective The present study explored the processing of emotional speech prosody in school-aged children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) but without marked language impairments (children with ASD [no LI]). Methods The mismatch negativity (MMN)/the late discriminative negativity (LDN), reflecting pre-attentive auditory discrimination processes, and the P3a, indexing involuntary orienting to attention-catching changes, were recorded to natural word stimuli uttered with different emotional connotations (neutral, sad, scornful and commanding). Perceptual prosody discrimination was addressed with a behavioral sound-discrimination test. Results Overall, children with ASD (no LI) were slower in behaviorally discriminating prosodic features of speech stimuli than typically developed control children. Further, smaller standard-stimulus event related potentials (ERPs) and MMN/LDNs were found in children with ASD (no LI) than in controls. In addition, the amplitude of the P3a was diminished and differentially distributed on the scalp in children with ASD (no LI) than in control children. Conclusions Processing of words and changes in emotional speech prosody is impaired at various levels of information processing in school-aged children with ASD (no LI). Significance The results suggest that low-level speech sound discrimination and orienting deficits might contribute to emotional speech prosody processing impairments observed in ASD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The amplitude of mismatch negativity (MMN) elicited following an unexpected sound reflects a pattern-violation signal that will increase with estimated precision. Precision is inversely related to environmental variance, and should be higher the longer that current regularities have been stable. However, MMN amplitude can be impacted by initial learning such that the relative probability of sounds when first encountered distorts the precision estimates later associated with those sounds. The present study tested the hypothesis that MMN to a pattern violation would be differentially sensitive to both local and global patterning within a sequence, depending on whether the sound was common or rare at sequence onset. Sound sequences consisted of two levels of nested regularity: (1) two tones alternated probabilities as the local standard (p =.875) and deviant (p =.125), and (2) these alternations occurred regularly across four blocks of 2.4 min (stable components) or twelve blocks of 0.8 min (unstable components). Sequences were delivered first in an unstable-stable ("increasing-stability") and next a stable-unstable ("decreasing-stability") structure, both inducing a violation to the regular block length at the transition between components. MMN to the tone initially heard as a common repeating standard when later heard as a deviant was not affected by stability of either local (tone probabilities) or global (block length) patterns, reaching equivalent amplitude in all components. In contrast, MMN amplitude to the tone initially heard as deviant was significantly impacted by both local and global pattern stability. MMN amplitude was larger in stable than unstable blocks only if they were heard first (decreasing-stability sequence), and was significantly smaller in both stable and unstable block types after a violation of regular block length. Results are interpreted as local MMN amplitude being "weighted down" by decreased precision in the global structure, but only for the first deviant encountered. Highlights • Initial experience has a lasting impact on future processing of sounds. • MMN amplitude reflects current sound probability, modulated by global patterns. • MMN amplitude is sensitive to each level of nested hierarchical patterns in sound. • The auditory system is profoundly sensitive to regularity over multiple timescales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weihong Kuang,1,* Liantian Tian,2,* Lili Yue,1 Jin Li1 1Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, People’s Republic of China; 2Occupational Respiratory Disease Research Center, No 4 West China Hospital/West China School of Public Health, Sichuan University, Chengdu, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the therapeutic effects of escitalopram in conjunction with Jiuweizhenxin-keli on neuroelectrophysiology in patients with major depressive disorders (MDD).Patients and methods: Patients with depressive episode of MDD according to the criteria of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, were randomly assigned to Esc group (30 patients) receiving escitalopram treatment and JK group (30 patients) treated with a combination of escitalopram and Jiuweizhenxin-keli. The healthy control (HC) group (30 persons with normal health condition) served as control. All groups were subject to examination of 24-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale and Hamilton Anxiety Scale, mismatch negativity (MMN), and sensory gating potential P50 (SG-P50) of event-related potentials. Data were collected at three different time points: baseline (before treatment) and week 2 and week 6 post treatment.Results: At baseline, all electrophysiological parameters of patients with MDD were significantly higher than those of HCs. After treatment, in the Esc group, MMN latency, S2-P50 amplitude, and S2-P50/S1-P50 amplitude ratio decreased; however, the decrements were not statistically significant compared to either baseline or the HC group. Also, no significant changes were observed in the percentage of individuals whose S2-P50/S1-P50 ≥0.5 in the Esc group. On the other hand, in the JK group after a 6-week treatment, MMN latency (206.35±32.14 ms) was significantly shorter than that of the Esc group (219.57±36.51 ms), S2-P50 amplitude (7.27±4.85 µV) reduced significantly compared with the baseline level (10.21±4.10 µV), the percentage of individuals whose S2-P50/S1-P50 ≥0.5 in the JK group greatly decreased and this was not significantly different compared to that of the HC group (P≥0.05).Conclusion: Neuroplasticity of patients with MDD is apparently disturbed, characterized by aberrant MMN latency and SG-P50-related event-related potential parameters. A combination of escitalopram and Jiuweizhenxin-keli treatment can markedly restore these neuroelectrophysiological features, and thus, could be a novel therapeutic solution for improving the impaired neuroplasticity of MDD patients. Keywords: major depressive disorder, Jiuweizhenxin-keli, escitalopram, MMN, P50, neuroplasticity

Human communication and language skills rely heavily on the ability to detect and process auditory inputs. This paper reviews possible applications of the event-related potential (ERP) technique to the study of cortical mechanisms supporting human auditory processing, including speech stimuli. Following a brief introduction to the ERP methodology, the remaining sections focus on demonstrating how ERPs can be used in humans to address research questions related to cortical organization, maturation and plasticity, as well as the effects of sensory deprivation, and multisensory interactions. The review is intended to serve as a primer for researchers interested in using ERPs for the study of the human auditory system.

This electrophysiological study investigated the role of the medial olivocochlear (MOC) efferents in listening in noise. Both ears of eleven normal-hearing adult participants were tested. The physiological tests consisted of transient-evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE) inhibition and the measurement of cortical event-related potentials (ERPs). The mismatch negativity (MMN) and P300 responses were obtained in passive and active listening tasks, respectively. Behavioral responses for the word recognition in noise test were also analyzed. Consistent with previous findings, the TEOAE data showed significant inhibition in the presence of contralateral acoustic stimulation. However, performance in the word recognition in noise test was comparable for the two conditions (i.e., without contralateral stimulation and with contralateral stimulation). Peak latencies and peak amplitudes of MMN and P300 did not show changes with contralateral stimulation. Behavioral performance was also maintained in the P300 task. Together, the results show that the peripheral auditory efferent effects captured via otoacoustic emission (OAE) inhibition might not necessarily be reflected in measures of central cortical processing and behavioral performance. As the MOC effects may not play a role in all listening situations in adults, the functional significance of the cochlear effects of the medial olivocochlear efferents and the optimal conditions conducive to corresponding effects in behavioral and cortical responses remain to be elucidated.

Charles Darwin suggested the perception of rhythm to be common to all animals. While only recently experimental research is finding some support for this claim, there are also aspects of rhythm cognition that appear to be species-specific, such as the capability to perceive a regular pulse (or beat) in a varying rhythm. In the current study, using EEG, we adapted an auditory oddball paradigm that allows for disentangling the contributions of beat perception and isochrony to the temporal predictability of the stimulus. We presented two rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) with a rhythmic sequence in two versions: an isochronous version, that was acoustically accented such that it could induce a duple meter (like a march), and a jittered version using the same acoustically accented sequence but that was presented in a randomly timed fashion, as such disabling beat induction. The results reveal that monkeys are sensitive to the isochrony of the stimulus, but not its metrical structure. The MMN was influenced by the isochrony of the stimulus, resulting in a larger MMN in the isochronous as opposed to the jittered condition. However, the MMN for both monkeys showed no interaction between metrical position and isochrony. So, while the monkey brain appears to be sensitive to the isochrony of the stimulus, we find no evidence in support of beat perception. We discuss these results in the context of the gradual audiomotor evolution (GAE) hypothesis (Merchant and Honing, 2014) that suggests beat-based timing to be omnipresent in humans but only weakly so or absent in non-human primates.

We tested brain and behavioral responses to two common messaging alerts (Outlook and Android whistle) using an oddball paradigm, where participants had to detect the two alerts among a background of white noise and occasional matched, distractor stimuli. Twenty-nine participants were tested using a behavioral target detection task and a subset of 14 were tested both with event-related potential (ERP) and behavioral oddball detection. For the ERP recordings, participants were instructed to attend to a distractor DVD in one condition and in the other, to actively attend to the stimuli. We measured mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a components and questionnaire responses to job involvement, rumination and work-life balance. There were significantly larger MMN responses to target alert signals, but only in the ignore condition. In both ignore and attend conditions, MMN was larger for the Android stimuli, probably as a result of the larger physical discriminability for the Android tone. On the other hand, there was a significant P3a for Outlook tones, but not for Android tones in the ignore condition. Neither alert showed significant P3a activity within the attend condition, but instead later frontal positivity, which was larger for the Outlook alert (in comparison to its matched distractor) and this effect was not seen for the Android tones. This was despite the Outlook alert being less perceptually discriminable compared to the Android alert. These findings suggest that the indices of attentional processing are more affected by the significance of the alert than the physical qualities. These effects were coupled with the finding that the faster reaction times to the Outlook sounds were correlated with greater job involvement. These data suggest that work-related messages might signal greater attentional switch and effort which in turn may feed into greater job involvement.

Auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) have been successfully used in adults as well as in newborns to discriminate recall of longer-term and shorter-term memories. Specifically the Mismatch Response (MMR) to deviant stimuli of an oddball paradigm is larger if the deviant stimuli are highly familiar (i.e., retrieved from long-term memory) than if they are unfamiliar, representing an immediate change to the standard stimuli kept in short-term memory. Here, we aimed to extend previous findings indicating a differential MMR to familiar and unfamiliar deviants in newborns (Beauchemin et al., 2011), to 3-month-old infants who are starting to interact more with their social surroundings supposedly based on forming more (social) long-term representations. Using a voice discrimination paradigm, each infant was repeatedly presented with the word “baby” (400 ms, interstimulus interval: 600 ms, 10 min overall duration) pronounced by three different female speakers. One voice that was unfamiliar to the infants served as the frequently presented “standard” stimulus, whereas another unfamiliar voice served as the “unfamiliar deviant” stimulus, and the voice of the infant’s mother served as the “familiar deviant.” Data collection was successful for 31 infants (mean age = 100 days). The MMR was determined by the difference between the ERP to standard stimuli and the ERP to the unfamiliar and familiar deviant, respectively. The MMR to the familiar deviant (mother’s voice) was larger, i.e., more positive, than that to the unfamiliar deviant between 100 and 400 ms post-stimulus over the frontal and central cortex. However, a genuine MMR differentiating, as a positive deflection, between ERPs to familiar deviants and standard stimuli was only found in the 300–400 ms interval. On the other hand, a genuine MMR differentiating, as a negative deflection, between ERPs to unfamiliar deviants from ERPs to standard stimuli was revealed for the 200–300 ms post-stimulus interval. Overall results confirm a differential MMR response to unfamiliar and familiar deviants in 3-month-olds, with the earlier negative MMR to unfamiliar deviants likely reflecting change detection based on comparison processes in short-term memory, and the later positive MMR to familiar deviants reflecting subsequent long-term memory-based processing of stimulus relevance.

Highlights • Predictive coding (PC) aims to offer a unified theory of cortical function. • We evaluate five assumptions of PC in the context of auditory pattern processing. Abstract Predictive coding is possibly one of the most influential, comprehensive, and controversial theories of neural function. While proponents praise its explanatory potential, critics object that key tenets of the theory are untested or even untestable. The present article critically examines existing evidence for predictive coding in the auditory modality. Specifically, we identify five key assumptions of the theory and evaluate each in the light of animal, human and modeling studies of auditory pattern processing. For the first two assumptions – that neural responses are shaped by expectations and that these expectations are hierarchically organized – animal and human studies provide compelling evidence. The anticipatory, predictive nature of these expectations also enjoys empirical support, especially from studies on unexpected stimulus omission. However, for the existence of separate error and prediction neurons, a key assumption of the theory, evidence is lacking. More work exists on the proposed oscillatory signatures of predictive coding, and on the relation between attention and precision. However, results on these latter two assumptions are mixed or contradictory. Looking to the future, more collaboration between human and animal studies, aided by model-based analyses will be needed to test specific assumptions and implementations of predictive coding – and, as such, help determine whether this popular grand theory can fulfill its expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current theories of pre-attentive deviant detection postulate that before the Superior Temporal Cortex (STC) detects a change, the Inferior Frontal Cortex (IFC) engages in stimulus analysis, which is particularly critical for ambiguous deviations (e.g., deviant preceded by a short train of standards). These theories rest on the assumption that IFC and STC are functionally connected, which has only been supported by correlational brain imaging studies. We examined this functional connectivity assumption by applying Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to disrupt IFC function, while measuring the later STC mismatch response with the event-related optical signal (EROS). EROS can localize brain activity in both spatial and temporal dimensions via measurement of optical property changes associated with neuronal activity, and is inert to the electromagnetic interference produced by TMS. Specifically, the STC mismatch response at 120–180 ms elicited by a deviant preceded by a short standard train when IFC TMS was applied at 80 ms was compared with the STC mismatch responses in temporal control (TMS with 200 ms delay), spatial control (sham TMS at vertex), auditory control (TMS pulse noise only), and cognitive control (deviant preceded by a long standard train) conditions. The STC mismatch response to deviants preceded by the short train was abolished by TMS of the IFC at 80 ms, while the STC responses remained intact in all other control conditions. These results confirm the involvement of the IFC in the STC mismatch response and support a functional connection between IFC and STC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A core design feature of human communication systems and expressive behaviours is their temporal organization. The cultural evolutionary origins of this feature remain unclear. Here, we test the hypothesis that regularities in the temporal organization of signalling sequences arise in the course of cultural transmission as adaptations to aspects of cortical function. We conducted two experiments on the transmission of rhythms associated with affective meanings, focusing on one of the most widespread forms of regularity in language and music: isochronicity. In the first experiment, we investigated how isochronous rhythmic regularities emerge and change in multigenerational signalling games, where the receiver (learner) in a game becomes the sender (transmitter) in the next game. We show that signalling sequences tend to become rhythmically more isochronous as they are transmitted across generations. In the second experiment, we combined electroencephalography (EEG) and two-player signalling games over 2 successive days. We show that rhythmic regularization of sequences can be predicted based on the latencies of the mismatch negativity response in a temporal oddball paradigm. These results suggest that forms of isochronicity in communication systems originate in neural constraints on information processing, which may be expressed and amplified in the course of cultural transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study the timing of electromagnetic signals recorded during incongruent and congruent audiovisual (AV) stimulation in 14 Italian healthy volunteers was examined. In a previous study (Proverbio et al., 2016) we investigated the McGurk effect in the Italian language and found out which visual and auditory inputs provided the most compelling illusory effects (e.g., bilabial phonemes presented acoustically and paired with non-labials, especially alveolar–nasal and velar–occlusive phonemes). In this study EEG was recorded from 128 scalp sites while participants observed a female and a male actor uttering 288 syllables selected on the basis of the previous investigation (lasting approximately 600 ms) and responded to rare targets (/re/, /ri/, /ro/, /ru/). In half of the cases the AV information was incongruent, except for targets that were always congruent. A pMMN (phonological Mismatch Negativity) to incongruent AV stimuli was identified 500 ms after voice onset time. This automatic response indexed the detection of an incongruity between the labial and phonetic information. SwLORETA (Low-Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography) analysis applied to the difference voltage incongruent–congruent in the same time window revealed that the strongest sources of this activity were the right superior temporal (STG) and superior frontal gyri, which supports their involvement in AV integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The human brain automatically extracts regularities embedded in environmental auditory events. This study investigated the extraction of abstract patterns by measuring mismatch negativity (MMN). Participants watched a silent subtitled movie and ignored a sequence of auditory events comprising frequent standards and rare deviants presented in the background. Tone triplets with varying pitch (first‐order property) served as the auditory events. The pitch intervals (interval 1 and interval 2) between the tones in a triplet and the ratio of interval 1 and 2 were considered second‐ and third‐order properties, respectively. Both second‐ and third‐order properties of the standards were kept constant in the mixed patterns block, while only the third‐order property was kept constant in the ratio pattern block. Four sets of tone triplets violating the interval and ratio patterns with different deviance levels were presented as deviants in both blocks, and subtracted with physically identical stimuli in a control block to isolate the MMNs. Interval and ratio pattern deviants elicited MMNs in the mixed patterns block while only ratio pattern deviants elicited MMNs in the ratio pattern block. Larger MMNs were elicited by large deviants as compared to small deviants. These results suggest that the change detection system is sensitive to the violation of both second‐ and third‐order abstract patterns. In addition to regularities in the abstract properties of auditory events, regularities in the relationships between abstract properties can also be extracted. This ability plays an important role in music and language perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consonant musical intervals tend to be more readily processed than dissonant intervals. In the present study, we explore the neural basis for this difference by registering how the brain responds after changes in consonance and dissonance, and how formal musical training modulates these responses. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were registered while participants were presented with sequences of consonant intervals interrupted by a dissonant interval, or sequences of dissonant intervals interrupted by a consonant interval. Participants were musicians and non-musicians. Our results show that brain responses triggered by changes in a consonant context differ from those triggered in a dissonant context. Changes in a sequence of consonant intervals are rapidly processed independently of musical expertise, as revealed by a change-related mismatch negativity (MMN, a component of the ERPs triggered by an odd stimulus in a sequence of stimuli) elicited in both musicians and non-musicians. In contrast, changes in a sequence of dissonant intervals elicited a late MMN only in participants with prolonged musical training. These different neural responses might form the basis for the processing advantages observed for consonance over dissonance and provide information about how formal musical training modulates them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An auditory oddball paradigm was employed to examine the unattended processing of pitch variation which functions to signal hierarchically different levels of meaning contrasts. Four oddball conditions were constructed by varying the pitch contour of critical words embedded in a Mandarin Chinese sentence. Two conditions included lexical-level word meaning contrasts (i.e. TONE condition) and the other two sentence-level information-status contrasts (i.e. ACCENTUATION condition). Both included stimuli with early vs. late acoustic cue divergence points. Results showed that the two early-cue conditions elicited earlier Mismatch Negativities, regardless of their functional hierarchy. The deviant stimuli induced theta-band power increases in the TONE condition but beta-band power decreases in the ACCENTUATIION condition, regardless of the timing of their acoustic cues. These results suggest that, in an unattentive state, the human brain can functionally disentangle hierarchically different levels of pitch variation, and the brain responses to these pitch variations are time-locked to the presence of the acoustic cues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We tested brain and behavioral responses to two common messaging alerts (Outlook and Android whistle) using an oddball paradigm, where participants had to detect the two alerts among a background of white noise and occasional matched, distractor stimuli. Twenty-nine participants were tested using a behavioral target detection task and a subset of 14 were tested both with event-related potential (ERP) and behavioral oddball detection. For the ERP recordings, participants were instructed to attend to a distractor DVD in one condition and in the other, to actively attend to the stimuli. We measured mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a components and questionnaire responses to job involvement, rumination and work-life balance. There were significantly larger MMN responses to target alert signals, but only in the ignore condition. In both ignore and attend conditions, MMN was larger for the Android stimuli, probably as a result of the larger physical discriminability for the Android tone. On the other hand, there was a significant P3a for Outlook tones, but not for Android tones in the ignore condition. Neither alert showed significant P3a activity within the attend condition, but instead later frontal positivity, which was larger for the Outlook alert (in comparison to its matched distractor) and this effect was not seen for the Android tones. This was despite the Outlook alert being less perceptually discriminable compared to the Android alert. These findings suggest that the indices of attentional processing are more affected by the significance of the alert than the physical qualities. These effects were coupled with the finding that the faster reaction times to the Outlook sounds were correlated with greater job involvement. These data suggest that work-related messages might signal greater attentional switch and effort which in turn may feed into greater job involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles Darwin suggested the perception of rhythm to be common to all animals. While only recently experimental research is finding some support for this claim, there are also aspects of rhythm cognition that appear to be species-specific, such as the capability to perceive a regular pulse (or beat) in a varying rhythm. In the current study, using EEG, we adapted an auditory oddball paradigm that allows for disentangling the contributions of beat perception and isochrony to the temporal predictability of the stimulus. We presented two rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) with a rhythmic sequence in two versions: an isochronous version, that was acoustically accented such that it could induce a duple meter (like a march), and a jittered version using the same acoustically accented sequence but that was presented in a randomly timed fashion, as such disabling beat induction. The results reveal that monkeys are sensitive to the isochrony of the stimulus, but not its metrical structure. The MMN was influenced by the isochrony of the stimulus, resulting in a larger MMN in the isochronous as opposed to the jittered condition. However, the MMN for both monkeys showed no interaction between metrical position and isochrony. So, while the monkey brain appears to be sensitive to the isochrony of the stimulus, we find no evidence in support of beat perception. We discuss these results in the context of the gradual audiomotor evolution (GAE) hypothesis (Merchant and Honing, 2014 ) that suggests beat-based timing to be omnipresent in humans but only weakly so or absent in non-human primates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]