Different hemispheric lateralization for periodicity and formant structure of vowels in the auditory cortex and its changes between childhood and adulthood

Neural responses to syllable-induced P1m and social impairment in children with autism spectrum disorder and typically developing Peers

“…These neurons function as 'feature detectors' for perceptually salient features of complex sounds, facilitating higher-level processing [88][89][90]. The enhancement of MEG/ EEG-measured SF occurs when stimuli are perceptually salient [91] or carry semantic meaning [92], and its magnitude varies with phonetic features, such as periodic versus non-periodic vowels [85]. Notably, SF is evident in the time range of the P1m component or even earlier, suggesting that the co-occurrence of SF with P1m might influence the contour and amplitude of the P1m.…”

Attenuated processing of vowels in the left hemisphere predicts speech-in-noise perception deficit in children with autism

“…None of the TD participants had known neurological or psychiatric disorders. Twenty two of 39 TD participants were the same as in our recent developmental study devoted to comparison of sustained negative responses to periodicity and formant composition of vowels in children and adults [25]. The participants with ASD were recruited through several sources (advertisements in the media, consulting centers, an educational center affiliated with the Moscow State University of Psychology and Education).…”

“…The processing of auditory patterns leading to formation of auditory objects (figures) is associated with a sustained negative shift in neural current recorded with MEG/EEG [16,17,[22][23][24][25], which we will refer to here as sustained processing negativity (SPN). It has been suggested that SPN reflects the persistent activity of 'non-synchronized' neural populations [25,26].…”

“…The processing of auditory patterns leading to formation of auditory objects (figures) is associated with a sustained negative shift in neural current recorded with MEG/EEG [16,17,[22][23][24][25], which we will refer to here as sustained processing negativity (SPN). It has been suggested that SPN reflects the persistent activity of 'non-synchronized' neural populations [25,26]. These neurons are most abundant in non-primary auditory areas, are highly sensitive to complex sound features such as combinations of certain spectral and temporal parameters, and are thought to support representation of meaningful auditory patterns including species-specific vocalizations or other ecologically relevant sounds [13][14][15][27][28][29].…”

“…The presence of bottom-up grouping cues characterizing vowel sounds, such as periodicity of the amplitude envelope, formant structure, and especially the combination of these features, leads to a rapid (within the first 80 ms) and long-lasting (~ 400 ms or longer) increase of the SPN in the auditory cortex [23,25,31]. The sensitivity of the SPN to bottom-up grouping signals and its ubiquitous presence in the neural response of children and adults suggests that it may serve as a candidate for detecting putative vowel processing dysfunction at the level of the auditory cortex in children with ASD.…”