Department Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Engineering (AIBE), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), 91052 Erlangen, Germany.
eNeuro. 2024 Sep 5;11(9). doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0127-24.2024. Print 2024 Sep.
Musicians can have better abilities to understand speech in adverse condition such as background noise than non-musicians. However, the neural mechanisms behind such enhanced behavioral performances remain largely unclear. Studies have found that the subcortical frequency-following response to the fundamental frequency of speech and its higher harmonics (speech-FFR) may be involved since it is larger in people with musical training than in those without. Recent research has shown that the speech-FFR consists of a cortical contribution in addition to the subcortical sources. Both the subcortical and the cortical contribution are modulated by selective attention to one of two competing speakers. However, it is unknown whether the strength of the cortical contribution to the speech-FFR, or its attention modulation, is influenced by musical training. Here we investigate these issues through magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings of 52 subjects (18 musicians, 25 non-musicians, and 9 neutral participants) listening to two competing male speakers while selectively attending one of them. The speech-in-noise comprehension abilities of the participants were not assessed. We find that musicians and non-musicians display comparable cortical speech-FFRs and additionally exhibit similar subject-to-subject variability in the response. Furthermore, we also do not observe a difference in the modulation of the neural response through selective attention between musicians and non-musicians. Moreover, when assessing whether the cortical speech-FFRs are influenced by particular aspects of musical training, no significant effects emerged. Taken together, we did not find any effect of musical training on the cortical speech-FFR.
音乐家在背景噪音等不利条件下理解言语的能力比非音乐家更好。然而，这种增强的行为表现背后的神经机制在很大程度上仍不清楚。研究发现，与没有音乐训练的人相比，具有音乐训练的人对言语基频及其谐波的亚皮质频率跟随反应（speech-FFR）可能更大，这可能与它有关。最近的研究表明，speech-FFR 除了皮质下来源外，还包括皮质贡献。皮质下和皮质贡献都受到对两个竞争说话者之一的选择性注意的调节。然而，尚不清楚皮质对 speech-FFR 的贡献强度或其对注意力的调节是否受到音乐训练的影响。在这里，我们通过对 52 名受试者（18 名音乐家、25 名非音乐家和 9 名中性参与者）的脑磁图（MEG）记录进行研究，这些受试者在选择性地听两个竞争的男性说话者时听到两个竞争的男性说话者。没有评估参与者在噪声中理解言语的能力。我们发现音乐家和非音乐家表现出可比较的皮质 speech-FFR，并且在反应中还表现出相似的个体间可变性。此外，我们也没有观察到音乐家和非音乐家之间通过选择性注意对神经反应的调节存在差异。此外，当评估皮质 speech-FFR 是否受到音乐训练的特定方面的影响时，没有出现显著的影响。综上所述，我们没有发现音乐训练对皮质 speech-FFR 有任何影响。
