Laboratory of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, Complutense University of Madrid and Polytechnic University of Madrid, Campus Científico y Tecnológico de la UPM, Pozuelo de Alarcón, 28223 Madrid, Spain.
Department of Cognition, Development and Education Psychology, and Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; Cognition and Brain Plasticity Unit, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL). L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain.
Neuroimage. 2021 Apr 1;229:117759. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.117759. Epub 2021 Jan 14.
The mismatch negativity (MMN) is an event related brain potential (ERP) elicited by unpredicted sounds presented in a sequence of repeated auditory stimuli. The neural sources of the MMN have been previously attributed to a fronto-temporo-parietal network which crucially overlaps with the so-called auditory dorsal stream, involving inferior and middle frontal, inferior parietal, and superior and middle temporal regions. These cortical areas are structurally connected by the arcuate fasciculus (AF), a three-branch pathway supporting the feedback-feedforward loop involved in auditory-motor integration, auditory working memory, storage of acoustic templates, as well as comparison and update of those templates. Here, we characterized the individual differences in the white-matter macrostructural properties of the AF and explored their link to the electrophysiological marker of passive change detection gathered in a melodic multifeature MMN-EEG paradigm in 26 healthy young adults without musical training. Our results show that left fronto-temporal white-matter connectivity plays an important role in the pre-attentive detection of rhythm modulations within a melody. Previous studies have shown that this AF segment is also critical for language processing and learning. This strong coupling between structure and function in auditory change detection might be related to life-time linguistic (and possibly musical) exposure and experiences, as well as to timing processing specialization of the left auditory cortex. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time in which the relationship between neurophysiological (EEG) and brain white-matter connectivity indexes using DTI-tractography are studied together. Thus, the present results, although still exploratory, add to the existing evidence on the importance of studying the constraints imposed on cognitive functions by the underlying structural connectivity.
失匹配负波（MMN）是一种由序列中重复听觉刺激呈现的未预测声音引起的事件相关脑电位（ERP）。MMN 的神经源以前归因于额颞顶叶网络，该网络与所谓的听觉背侧流关键重叠，涉及额中回、额下回、顶下小叶和颞上回和中回。这些皮质区域通过弓状束（AF）结构连接，该束是支持涉及听觉-运动整合、听觉工作记忆、声学模板存储以及这些模板比较和更新的反馈-前馈回路的三个分支途径。在这里，我们描述了 AF 的白质宏观结构特性的个体差异，并探讨了它们与在没有音乐训练的旋律多特征 MMN-EEG 范式中收集的被动变化检测的电生理标记之间的联系。我们的结果表明，左侧额颞叶白质连接在旋律内节奏调制的非注意检测中起着重要作用。先前的研究表明，该 AF 段对于语言处理和学习也至关重要。听觉变化检测中结构和功能之间的这种强耦合可能与终生语言（和可能音乐）暴露和体验以及左听觉皮层的定时处理专业化有关。据我们所知，这是首次使用 DTI 束追踪法研究神经生理学（EEG）和大脑白质连接指数之间的关系。因此，尽管目前的结果仍在探索中，但它们增加了关于研究认知功能受到潜在结构连接限制的重要性的现有证据。
