gms | German Medical Science

70. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (DGNC)
Joint Meeting mit der Skandinavischen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (DGNC) e. V.

12.05. - 15.05.2019, Würzburg

Human subthalamic nucleus and globus pallidus internus carry information on word onsets and show speaker selectivity

Neuronale Aktivität im STN und GPi enthält Informationen zum Wortbeginn und zur Selektion des Sprechers

Meeting Abstract

  • Inga Maren Schepers - Universität Oldenburg, Institut für Psychologie, Oldenburg, Deutschland
  • Helge Ahrens - Universität Oldenburg, Neuroimaging Center, Oldenburg, Deutschland
  • Anne-Kathrin Beck - Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Neurochirurgie, Hannover, Deutschland
  • presenting/speaker Kerstin Schwabe - Hannover Medical School, Department of Neurosurgery, Hannover, Deutschland
  • Mahmoud Abdallat - Hannover Medical School, Department of Neurosurgery, Hannover, Deutschland
  • Joachim K. Krauss - Hannover Medical School, Department of Neurosurgery, Hannover, Deutschland
  • Jochem W. Rieger - Oldenburg University, Department of Psychology, Oldenburg, Deutschland

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. 70. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (DGNC), Joint Meeting mit der Skandinavischen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. Würzburg, 12.-15.05.2019. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2019. DocP110

doi: 10.3205/19dgnc446, urn:nbn:de:0183-19dgnc4463

Published: May 8, 2019

© 2019 Schepers et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.


Outline

Text

Objective: The basal ganglia circuitries are known for their involvement in motor, cognitive-associative and limbic functions. They play a role in time perception, temporal chunking, rhythm processing, and sensory and attentional gating. Here, we wanted to determine whether temporal speech information is represented in the neural responses in human basal ganglia nuclei.

Methods: In patients with Parkinson’s disease (n=8), dystonia (n=3), and Tourette syndrome (n=3) implanted bilaterally for deep brain stimulation (DBS), we obtained local field potential recordings from the subthalamic nucleus (STN; n=8, 48 bipolar contacts) or the globus pallidus internus (GPi; n=6, 36 bipolar contacts) via the temporarily externalized DBS electrodes prior to implantation of the implantable pulse generator, while they listened to two-speaker speech streams. One stream was task relevant, the other served as distractor. Temporal response functions (TRFs) were estimated for each contact separately. These TRFs describe the mapping between the word onsets of both speaker streams and the neural responses at the respective DBS contacts.

Results: All subjects showed sustained neural responses in the beta to low gamma range (15–60 Hz) to speech compared to baseline (p<0.05). Encoding models based on TRF estimation showed that these neural responses track the word onsets in the two speech streams (34/48 STN contacts (71%), 23/36 GPi contacts (64%), p<0.05). Next, speech stream tracking was compared between the two speakers at contacts showing significant word onset tracking. This analysis revealed that 27 of 34 STN contacts (79%) and 10 of 23 GPi contacts (44%) showed selectivity for one of the two speaker streams (p<0.05).

Conclusion: Our findings provide evidence that neural responses in human STN and GPi contain information on temporal speech information (i.e., word onsets) during continuous speech presentation and that speaker selectivity is present in these subcortical structures. This selectivity may be important for gating task-relevant and suppressing task-irrelevant information and thus for attentional selection.