Kurthen Ira, Christen Allison, Meyer Martin, Giroud Nathalie
Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Binzmuehlestrasse 14/21, Zurich 8050, Switzerland.
Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Binzmuehlestrasse 14/21, Zurich 8050, Switzerland.
Neuroimage. 2022 Nov 15;262:119580. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119580. Epub 2022 Aug 19.
Age-related hearing loss is a highly prevalent condition, which manifests at both the auditory periphery and the brain. It leads to degraded auditory input, which needs to be repaired in order to achieve understanding of spoken language. It is still unclear how older adults with this condition draw on their neural resources to optimally process speech. By presenting interrupted speech to 26 healthy older adults with normal-for-age audiograms, this study investigated neural tracking of degraded auditory input. The electroencephalograms of the participants were recorded while they first listened to and then verbally repeated sentences interrupted by silence in varying interruption rates. Speech tracking was measured by inter-trial phase coherence in response to the stimuli. In interruption rates that corresponded to the theta frequency band, speech tracking was highly specific to the interruption rate and positively related to the understanding of interrupted speech. These results suggest that older adults' brain activity optimizes through the tracking of stimulus characteristics, and that this tracking aids in processing an incomplete auditory stimulus. Further investigation of speech tracking as a candidate training mechanism to alleviate age-related hearing loss is thus encouraged.
年龄相关性听力损失是一种非常普遍的病症，在听觉外周和大脑均有表现。它会导致听觉输入退化，而这种退化需要修复才能实现对口语的理解。目前仍不清楚患有这种病症的老年人如何利用其神经资源来最佳地处理语音。通过向26名听力图与年龄相符的健康老年人呈现间断性语音，本研究调查了对退化听觉输入的神经追踪。在参与者首先聆听然后口头重复以不同中断率被静音打断的句子时，记录他们的脑电图。语音追踪通过对刺激的试次间相位一致性来测量。在与θ频段相对应的中断率下，语音追踪对中断率具有高度特异性，并且与对间断性语音的理解呈正相关。这些结果表明，老年人的大脑活动通过对刺激特征的追踪而优化，并且这种追踪有助于处理不完整的听觉刺激。因此，鼓励进一步研究将语音追踪作为减轻年龄相关性听力损失的一种候选训练机制。
