Open AccessHigh‐density intracranial recordings reveal a distinct site in anterior dorsal precentral cortex that tracks perceived speech
Author(s) -
Berezutskaya Julia,
Baratin Clarissa,
Freudenburg Zachary V.,
Ramsey Nicolas F.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
human brain mapping
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.005
H-Index - 191
eISSN - 1097-0193
pISSN - 1065-9471
DOI - 10.1002/hbm.25144
Subject(s) - psychology , dorsum , speech perception , precentral gyrus , motor theory of speech perception , neuroscience , perception , motor cortex , neurocomputational speech processing , auditory cortex , masking (illustration) , speech recognition , anatomy , biology , computer science , medicine , magnetic resonance imaging , art , radiology , stimulation , visual arts
Various brain regions are implicated in speech processing, and the specific function of some of them is better understood than others. In particular, involvement of the dorsal precentral cortex (dPCC) in speech perception remains debated, and attribution of the function of this region is more or less restricted to motor processing. In this study, we investigated high‐density intracranial responses to speech fragments of a feature film, aiming to determine whether dPCC is engaged in perception of continuous speech. Our findings show that dPCC exhibited preference to speech over other tested sounds. Moreover, the identified area was involved in tracking of speech auditory properties including speech spectral envelope, its rhythmic phrasal pattern and pitch contour. DPCC also showed the ability to filter out noise from the perceived speech. Comparing these results to data from motor experiments showed that the identified region had a distinct location in dPCC, anterior to the hand motor area and superior to the mouth articulator region. The present findings uncovered with high‐density intracranial recordings help elucidate the functional specialization of PCC and demonstrate the unique role of its anterior dorsal region in continuous speech perception.