Temporal and spectral coding characteristics of complex stimulus in the auditory pathways on the level of brain stem

• Grant number: 13/24238-6
• Support type: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: June 01, 2014 - May 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Speech Therapy
• Principal Investigator: Eliane Schochat
• Grantee: Eliane Schochat
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Medicina (FM). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Speech is a complex acoustic signal and its perception involves processing of various types , such as peripheral auditory analysis , automatic extraction of the characteristics of the sound in the nuclei of the brainstem , leading to the classification of words and phonemes . The representation and perception of speech require very precise auditory nervous system , through the synchronous activity of large populations of neurons from the periphery to the cortex , which should be sensitive to rapid changes in the spectrum , to low signal to noise ratios and high rates stimulation . Because of its nature independent of behavioral , electrophysiological tests are ideal for evaluating the neural bases of speech perception , without the interference of the subjectivity of the behavioral response . Once the auditory brainstem response (ABR ) to click stimuli showed no difference between clinical populations , the use of new stimuli of different complexities in the evaluation of ABR is being encouraged by the literature in recent years , in order to improve the investigation of auditory pathways in the brainstem , and also to study the cognitive and sensory processes embedded in behavioral performance , particularly in clinical populations . Thus , this research aims to improve the study of how the auditory pathways located in the brainstem encode the temporal and spectral characteristics of plosive consonant- vowel / ga / , / da / and / ba / ( speech sounds ) in children with typically development , and then compare them to children with auditory processing disorder , specific language impairment and phonological disorders. (AU)