Neural representation of dynamic frequency is degraded in older adults

Clinard, Christopher G.; Cotter, Caitlin M.

doi:10.1016/j.heares.2015.02.002

Cited by 43 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Evidence of age-related deficits in auditory temporal processing has been found in psychoacoustics studies (Pichora-Fuller & Schneider 1991; Fitzgibbons & Gordon-Salant 1996; Frisina & Frisina 1997; Schneider & Hamstra 1999; Gordon-Salant et al 2006; He et al 2008), at the single neuron level from various nuclei of the auditory pathway in animal models (Walton et al 1998; Schatteman et al 2008; Recanzone et al 2011) and in electrophysiological studies in humans and animals (Lister et al 2011; Parthasarathy & Bartlett 2011; Anderson et al 2012; Clinard & Tremblay 2013; Clinard & Cotter 2015). A number of rodent studies support the theory that this degradation of temporal precision may be attributed to a significant decrease of inhibitory functions and a consequent loss of balance between excitatory and inhibitory processes in the dorsal cochlear nuclei (Caspary et al 2005; Schatteman et al 2008; Wang et al 2009), inferior colliculi (IC) (Caspary et al 1995), spiral ganglion neurons (Tang et al 2014), and auditory cortices (de Villers-Sidani et al 2010; Hughes et al 2010; Juarez-Salinas et al 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Effects of Aging on the Encoding of Dynamic and Static Components of Speech

et al. 2015

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Objectives The authors investigated aging effects on the envelope of the frequency following response to dynamic and static components of speech. Older adults frequently experience problems understanding speech, despite having clinically normal hearing. Improving audibility with hearing aids provides variable benefit, as amplification cannot restore the temporal precision degraded by aging. Previous studies have demonstrated age-related delays in subcortical timing specific to the dynamic, transition region of the stimulus. However, it is unknown whether this delay is mainly due to a failure to encode rapid changes in the formant transition because of central temporal processing deficits or as a result of cochlear damage that reduces audibility for the high-frequency components of the speech syllable. To investigate the nature of this delay, the authors compared subcortical responses in younger and older adults with normal hearing to the speech syllables /da/ and /a/, hypothesizing that the delays in peak timing observed in older adults are mainly caused by temporal processing deficits in the central auditory system. Design The frequency following response was recorded to the speech syllables /da/ and /a/ from 15 younger and 15 older adults with normal hearing, normal IQ, and no history of neurological disorders. Both speech syllables were presented binaurally with alternating polarities at 80 dB SPL at a rate of 4.3 Hz through electromagnetically shielded insert earphones. A vertical montage of four Ag–AgCl electrodes (Cz, active, forehead ground, and earlobe references) was used. Results The responses of older adults were significantly delayed with respect to younger adults for the transition and onset regions of the /da/ syllable and for the onset of the /a/ syllable. However, in contrast with the younger adults who had earlier latencies for /da/ than for /a/ (as was expected given the high-frequency energy in the /da/ stop consonant burst), latencies in older adults were not significantly different between the responses to /da/ and /a/. An unexpected finding was noted in the amplitude and phase dissimilarities between the two groups in the later part of the steady-state region, rather than in the transition region. This amplitude reduction may indicate prolonged neural recovery or response decay associated with a loss of auditory nerve fibers. Conclusions These results suggest that older adults’ peak timing delays may arise from decreased synchronization to the onset of the stimulus due to reduced audibility, though the possible role of impaired central auditory processing cannot be ruled out. Conversely, a deterioration in temporal processing mechanisms in the auditory nerve, brainstem, or midbrain may be a factor in the sudden loss of synchronization in the later part of the steady-state response in older adults.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Effects of Aging on the Encoding of Dynamic and Static Components of Speech

et al. 2015

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“…To be specific, older listeners' dynamic-pitch perception could be degraded by various suprathreshold hearing deficits, which may include poor temporal coding (e.g., Grose & Mamo, 2010;Hopkins & Moore, 2011), degraded frequency selectivity (e.g., Matschke, 1991;, and degraded neural representation of frequency modulation (e.g., Clinard & Cotter, 2015).…”

Section: Dynamic-pitch Perception and Speech-in-noise Benefitmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Dynamic Pitch on Speech Recognition in Temporally Modulated Noise

Shen

Souza

2017

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose This study investigated the effect of dynamic pitch in target speech on older and younger listeners' speech recognition in temporally modulated noise. First, we examined whether the benefit from dynamic-pitch cues depends on the temporal modulation of noise. Second, we tested whether older listeners can benefit from dynamic-pitch cues for speech recognition in noise. Last, we explored the individual factors that predict the amount of dynamic-pitch benefit for speech recognition in noise. Method Younger listeners with normal hearing and older listeners with varying levels of hearing sensitivity participated in the study, in which speech reception thresholds were measured with sentences in nonspeech noise. Results The younger listeners benefited more from dynamic pitch for speech recognition in temporally modulated noise than unmodulated noise. Older listeners were able to benefit from the dynamic-pitch cues but received less benefit from noise modulation than the younger listeners. For those older listeners with hearing loss, the amount of hearing loss strongly predicted the dynamic-pitch benefit for speech recognition in noise. Conclusions Dynamic-pitch cues aid speech recognition in noise, particularly when noise has temporal modulation. Hearing loss negatively affects the dynamic-pitch benefit to older listeners with significant hearing loss.

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“…In studies that evoke FFRs with sweeping pure tones, less robust FFRs are found for higher rates of change, i.e. in the range of 900-6600 Hz/s (Billings et al, 2019; Clinard and Cotter, 2015). Another possibility is that the reference for the Fourier Analyzer represented these rapid frequency changes less precisely, impairing response analysis.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These simple stimuli are often unnatural, but they allow for precise manipulation of the acoustic cues. Examples are tonebursts (Clinard et al, 2010; Gardi et al, 1979; Glaser et al, 1976; Tichko and Skoe, 2017), pure tones (Gockel et al, 2015; Holmes et al, 2018), tone sweeps (Billings et al, 2019; Clinard and Cotter, 2015; Krishnan and Parkinson, 2000; Purcell et al, 2004) and (sinusoidally) amplitude modulated (AM) stimuli (Bidelman and Patro, 2016; Dimitrijevic et al, 2016; Van Canneyt et al, 2019). It is unclear whether findings for these non-speech stimuli can be generalized to responses evoked by speech stimuli.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Modulated Noise to Natural Speech: the Effect of Stimulus Parameters on the Frequency Following Response

Canneyt

Wouters

Francart

2019

Preprint

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5Frequency following responses (FFRs) can be evoked by a wide range of auditory stimuli, but for many stimulus parameters the effect on FFR strength is not fully understood. This complicates the comparison of earlier studies and the design of new studies. Furthermore, the most optimal stimulus parameters are unknown. To help resolve this issue, we investigated the effects of four important stimulus parameters and their interactions on the FFR. FFRs were measured in 16 normal hearing subjects evoked by stimuli with four levels of stimulus complexity (amplitude modulated noise, artificial vowels, natural vowels and nonsense words), three frequencies (around 105 Hz, 185 Hz and 245 Hz), three frequency contours (upward sweeping, downward sweeping and flat) and three vowels (Flemish /a:/, /u:/, and /i:/). We found that FFRs evoked by artificial vowels were on average 4 to 6 dB SNR larger than responses evoked by the other stimulus complexities, probably because of (unnaturally) strong higher harmonics. Moreover, response amplitude decreased with stimulus frequency but response SNR did not. Thirdly, frequency variation within the stimulus did not impact FFR strength, but only when rate of change remained low (e.g. not the case for sweeping natural vowels). Finally, the vowel /i:/ appeared to evoke larger response amplitudes compared to /a:/ and /u:/, but analysis power was too small to confirm this statistically. Differences in response strength between evoking vowels have been suggested to stem from destructive interference between response components. We show how a model of the auditory periphery can simulate these interference patterns and predict response strength. Altogether, the results of this study can guide stimulus choice for future FFR research and practical applications.

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Neural representation of dynamic frequency is degraded in older adults

Cited by 43 publications

References 58 publications

Effects of Aging on the Encoding of Dynamic and Static Components of Speech

Effects of Aging on the Encoding of Dynamic and Static Components of Speech

The Effect of Dynamic Pitch on Speech Recognition in Temporally Modulated Noise

From Modulated Noise to Natural Speech: the Effect of Stimulus Parameters on the Frequency Following Response

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