Modulation of vocal pitch is a key speech feature that conveys important linguistic and affective information. Auditory feedback is used to monitor and maintain pitch. We examined induced neural high gamma power (HGP) (65–150 Hz) using magnetoencephalography during pitch feedback control. Participants phonated into a microphone while hearing their auditory feedback through headphones. During each phonation, a single real‐time 400 ms pitch shift was applied to the auditory feedback. Participants compensated by rapidly changing their pitch to oppose the pitch shifts. This behavioral change required coordination of the neural speech motor control network, including integration of auditory and somatosensory feedback to initiate change in motor plans. We found increases in HGP across both hemispheres within 200 ms of pitch shifts, covering left sensory and right premotor, parietal, temporal, and frontal regions, involved in sensory detection and processing of the pitch shift. Later responses to pitch shifts (200–300 ms) were right dominant, in parietal, frontal, and temporal regions. Timing of activity in these regions indicates their role in coordinating motor change and detecting and processing of the sensory consequences of this change. Subtracting out cortical responses during passive listening to recordings of the phonations isolated HGP increases specific to speech production, highlighting right parietal and premotor cortex, and left posterior temporal cortex involvement in the motor response. Correlation of HGP with behavioral compensation demonstrated right frontal region involvement in modulating participant's compensatory response. This study highlights the bihemispheric sensorimotor cortical network involvement in auditory feedback‐based control of vocal pitch.
Accurate integration of sensory inputs and motor commands is essential to achieve successful behavioral goals. A robust model of sensorimotor integration is the pitch perturbation response, in which speakers respond rapidly to shifts of the pitch in their auditory feedback. In a previous study, we demonstrated abnormal sensorimotor integration in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) with an abnormally enhanced behavioral response to pitch perturbation. Here we examine the neural correlates of the abnormal pitch perturbation response in AD patients, using magnetoencephalographic imaging. The participants phonated the vowel /α/ while a real-time signal processor briefly perturbed the pitch (100 cents, 400 ms) of their auditory feedback. We examined the high-gamma band (65–150 Hz) responses during this task. AD patients showed significantly reduced left prefrontal activity during the early phase of perturbation and increased right middle temporal activity during the later phase of perturbation, compared to controls. Activity in these brain regions significantly correlated with the behavioral response. These results demonstrate that impaired prefrontal modulation of speech-motor-control network and additional recruitment of right temporal regions are significant mediators of aberrant sensorimotor integration in patients with AD. The abnormal neural integration mechanisms signify the contribution of cortical network dysfunction to cognitive and behavioral deficits in AD.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10153386
- Publisher / Repository:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Scientific Reports
- Volume:
- 9
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2045-2322
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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