Functional Organization of the Superior Temporal Gyrus for Speech Perception

Study Purpose

The basic mechanisms underlying comprehension of spoken language are still largely unknown. Over the past decade, the study team has gained new insights to how the human brain extracts the most fundamental linguistic elements (consonants and vowels) from a complex and highly variable acoustic signal. However, the next set of questions await pertaining to the sequencing of those auditory elements and how they are integrated with other features, such as, the amplitude envelope of speech. Further investigation of the cortical representation of speech sounds can likely shed light on these fundamental questions. Previous research has implicated the superior temporal cortex in the processing of speech sounds, but little is known about how these sounds are linked together into the perceptual experience of words and continuous speech. The overall goal is to determine how the brain extracts linguistic elements from a complex acoustic speech signal towards better understanding and remediating human language disorders.

Recruitment Criteria

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Healthy volunteers are participants who do not have a disease or condition, or related conditions or symptoms

No
Study Type

An interventional clinical study is where participants are assigned to receive one or more interventions (or no intervention) so that researchers can evaluate the effects of the interventions on biomedical or health-related outcomes.


An observational clinical study is where participants identified as belonging to study groups are assessed for biomedical or health outcomes.


Searching Both is inclusive of interventional and observational studies.

Interventional
Eligible Ages 18 Years - 70 Years
Gender All
More Inclusion & Exclusion Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

  • - Participants with epilepsy or brain tumors at UCSF undergoing surgical electrode implantation for seizure localization or awake intraoperative brain mapping for resection of brain tumors or epilepsy and.
  • - Participants with electrodes implanted in at least two regions of interest who are willing and able to cooperate with study tasks.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • - Participants who lack capacity or decline to provide informed consent, - Participants who have significant cerebral lesions or.
  • - Participants with cognitive deficits that preclude reliable completion of study tasks.

Trial Details

Trial ID:

This trial id was obtained from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, providing information on publicly and privately supported clinical studies of human participants with locations in all 50 States and in 196 countries.

NCT05435859
Phase

Phase 1: Studies that emphasize safety and how the drug is metabolized and excreted in humans.

Phase 2: Studies that gather preliminary data on effectiveness (whether the drug works in people who have a certain disease or condition) and additional safety data.

Phase 3: Studies that gather more information about safety and effectiveness by studying different populations and different dosages and by using the drug in combination with other drugs.

Phase 4: Studies occurring after FDA has approved a drug for marketing, efficacy, or optimal use.

N/A
Lead Sponsor

The sponsor is the organization or person who oversees the clinical study and is responsible for analyzing the study data.

University of California, San Francisco
Principal Investigator

The person who is responsible for the scientific and technical direction of the entire clinical study.

Edward F Chang, MD
Principal Investigator Affiliation University of California, San Francisco
Agency Class

Category of organization(s) involved as sponsor (and collaborator) supporting the trial.

Other, NIH
Overall Status Enrolling by invitation
Countries United States
Conditions

The disease, disorder, syndrome, illness, or injury that is being studied.

Epilepsy, Brain Tumor, Speech
Additional Details

Intracranial high-density electrodes make it possible to record neural activity directly from the brain surface with unparalleled spatial and temporal resolution to unravel both local and population encoding of speech sounds. This study proposes to assess speech perception in patients who are undergoing surgery for seizure localization or awake intraoperative brain mapping. Electrode placement is based on the clinical needs of each patient. The research study team will examine the mechanisms of phonetic encoding to reveal both the organization of auditory speech feature selectivity and the distributed population-level processing that give rise to the emergent properties of spoken language perception. The aims of this study seeks to determine the cortical encoding of phonological sequencing (Aim 1), representation of amplitude landmark coding in speech (Aim 2), and the shared and distinct mechanisms for speech and music melody encoding (Aim 3). Together, these aims will advance our understanding of speech encoding in the human brain beyond consonants and vowels, addressing questions pertaining to sequencing, amplitude coding, and auditory specialization. These results should heavily impact current theories of speech processing and, therefore, will have significant implications for understanding and remediating human language disorders.

Arms & Interventions

Arms

Experimental: Electrocorticography (ECoG) recording during Speech Tasks

Participants listened to 25-minute Speech Tasks while ECoG signals for neural activity was recorded during their intraoperative procedure or inpatient hospitalization at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Interventions

Behavioral: - Speech Tasks

Listen to 25-minutes of speech sounds in English.

Contact a Trial Team

If you are interested in learning more about this trial, find the trial site nearest to your location and contact the site coordinator via email or phone. We also strongly recommend that you consult with your healthcare provider about the trials that may interest you and refer to our terms of service below.

University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California

Status

Address

University of California, San Francisco

San Francisco, California, 94143

Stay Informed & Connected