The frontotemporal organization of the arcuate fasciculus and its relationship with speech perception in young and older amateur singers and non-singers

The ability to perceive speech in noise (SPiN) declines with age. Although the etiology of SPiN decline is not well understood, accumulating evidence suggests a role for the dorsal speech stream. While age-related decline within the dorsal speech stream would negatively affect SPiN performance, experience-induced neuroplastic changes within the dorsal speech stream could positively affect SPiN performance. Here, we investigated the relationship between SPiN performance and the structure of the arcuate fasciculus (AF), which forms the white matter scaffolding of the dorsal speech stream, in aging singers and non-singers. Forty-three non-singers and 41 singers aged 20 to 87 years old completed a hearing evaluation and a magnetic resonance imaging session that included High Angular Resolution Diffusion Imaging. The groups were matched for sex, age, education, handedness, cognitive level, and musical instrument experience. A subgroup of participants completed syllable discrimination in the noise task. The AF was divided into 10 segments to explore potential local specializations for SPiN. The results show that, in carefully matched groups of singers and nonsingers (a) myelin and/or axonal membrane deterioration within the bilateral frontotemporal AF segments are associated with SPiN difficulties in aging singers and non-singers; (b) the structure of the AF is different in singers and non-singers; (c) these differences are not associated with a benefit on SPiN performance for singers. This study clarifies the etiology of SPiN difficulties by supporting the hypothesis for the role of aging of the dorsal speech stream

Quelles alternatives à la croissance infinie?

Le but de cet essai est, d’une part, de poser une réflexion sur les liens existants entre l’actuelle économie capitaliste néolibérale, la foi dans une croissance économique illimitée dans un contexte de croissance démographique et de ressources limitées; et d’y opposer, d’autre part, les valeurs prônées pour la construction d’une société et d’une économie alternative

Créations audiovisuelles archéomédiatiques

Cette version de la thèse a été tronquée des éléments de composition originale. Une version plus complète est disponible en ligne pour les membres de la communauté de l’Université de Montréal et peut aussi être consultée dans une des bibliothèques UdeM.Les rapports entre le nouveau, l’ancien, l’imaginaire et le présent sont des vecteurs pour la créativité. La compréhension et le développement de projet créatif liés à des médias obsolètes, imaginaires ou futuristes, offrent à de nombreux artistes la possibilité de développer une expression personnelle ancrée dans un rapport techno-esthétique qui peut être porteur de multiples sens, que ce soit d’un point de vue social, environnemental, technologique ou formel. Ce projet de recherche est consacré à la création audiovisuelle reposant sur une pensée archéomédiatique. En premier lieu, je présente le cadre théorique et conceptuel qui a mené à la création de mes œuvres au cours de cette période doctorale. J’y relate l’exploitation d’une hybridation entre nouvelles et anciennes technologies servant à développer un langage audiovisuel puisant dans l’archéologie médiatique. Puis, dans le deuxième chapitre, j’expose l’approche compositionnelle derrière mes œuvres. Dans le troisième chapitre, j’aborde l’aspect sensoriel de mon processus de création, expliqué à travers une série de relations multimodales telles que les rapports de luminosité, de densité, de mouvements, de relief, d’espace et de textures, entre le son et l’image. Pour terminer, j’introduis la notion novatrice de texture stéréoscopique : une forme de texture optique qu’il est seulement possible de percevoir avec un média tridimensionnel.Relationships between the new, the old, the imaginary, and present time, have always been vectors for creativity. The understanding and development behind creative projects in regard to obsolete, imaginary or futuristic media, have offered many artists ways of expressing themselves in a techno-aesthetic containing multiple meanings, whether from a social, environmental, or technological point of view. This research project is devoted to audiovisual creation based on media-archeological thinking. Firstly, the theoretical and conceptual framework that led to the creation of my works during this doctoral period are presented. I will discuss the exploitation of a hybridization between new and old technologies used to develop an audiovisual language drawing on media archaeology. The second part will present the compositional process behind my works. The third part deals with the sensory aspect of my creative process, explained through a series of cross-modal relations such as luminosity, density, movement, relief, space and texture, between sound and image. Lastly, I will introduce the novel notion of stereoscopic texture: a form of optical texture that can only be seen through a three-dimensional medium, thus finding something new in the old

Online teaching of inflammatory skin pathology by a French-speaking International University Network.

INTRODUCTION: Developments in technology, web-based teaching and whole slide imaging have broadened the teaching horizon in anatomic pathology. Creating online learning material including many types of media such as radiologic images, whole slides, videos, clinical and macroscopic photographs, is now accessible to most universities. Unfortunately, a major limiting factor to maintain and update the learning material is the amount of resources needed. In this perspective, a French-national university network was initiated in 2011 to build joint online teaching modules consisting of clinical cases and tests. The network has since expanded internationally to Québec, Switzerland and Ivory Coast. METHOD: One of the first steps of the project was to build a learning module on inflammatory skin pathology for interns and residents in pathology and dermatology. A pathology resident from Québec spent 6 weeks in France and Switzerland to develop the contents and build the module on an e-learning Moodle platform under the supervision of two dermatopathologists. The learning module contains text, interactive clinical cases, tests with feedback, virtual slides, images and clinical photographs. For that module, the virtual slides are decentralized in 2 universities (Bordeaux and Paris 7). Each university is responsible of its own slide scanning, image storage and online display with virtual slide viewers. RESULTS: The module on inflammatory skin pathology includes more than 50 web pages with French original content, tests and clinical cases, links to over 45 virtual images and more than 50 microscopic and clinical photographs. The whole learning module is being revised by four dermatopathologists and two senior pathologists. It will be accessible to interns and residents in the spring of 2014. The experience and knowledge gained from that work will be transferred to the next international resident whose work will be aimed at creating lung and breast pathology learning modules. CONCLUSION: The challenges of sustaining a project of this scope are numerous. The technical aspect of whole-slide imaging and storage needs to be developed by each university or group. The content needs to be regularly updated and its accuracy reviewed by experts in each individual domain. The learning modules also need to be promoted within the academic community to ensure maximal benefit for trainees. A collateral benefit of the project was the establishment of international partnerships between French-speaking universities and pathologists with the common goal of promoting pathology education through the use of multi-media technology including whole slide imaging

Transitions - Note 5

Note complète ; Résumé ; Capsule 5 : L'influence des aspirations scolaires sur l'accès aux études postsecondaires

Bases neurobiologiques de la perception de la parole dans le bruit chez les chanteurs et les non-chanteurs

Percevoir la parole dans le bruit devient difficile en vieillissant. La nature de ces difficultés est incertaine, mais le déclin lié à l’âge de la structure de la voie dorsale de la parole pourrait être un facteur contributif. La pratique du chant choral pourrait aider à ralentir le vieillissement de la voie dorsale de la parole, mais les effets du chant choral sont peu connus. Les objectifs de ce mémoire étaient d’investiguer la relation entre le déclin structurel de la voie dorsale et les difficultés de perception de la parole, et d’identifier comment la pratique du chant choral modifie cette relation. Dans le cadre de ce mémoire, 44 chanteurs et 41 non-chanteurs jeunes et âgés ont complété une séance d’imagerie par résonance magnétique, ainsi que des évaluations cognitives et auditives. Un sous groupe a effectué une tâche de discrimination de syllabes dans le bruit. Dans une première étude, des avantages comportementaux ont été observés pour des chanteurs âgés avec certaines caractéristiques liées à leur pratique, ce qui suggère que le chant bénéficie à la perception de la parole seulement dans certaines conditions. Ces avantages ont été associés à la structure corticale de régions de la voie dorsale de la parole. Dans une deuxième étude, le déclin structurel de segments fronto-temporaux du faisceau arqué, qui constitue l’un des principaux faisceaux de matière blanche de la voie dorsale de la parole, a été associé aux difficultés de perception de la parole. De plus, des différences dans la structure du faisceau arqué ont été identifiées entre les groupes, mais ces différences n’étaient pas associées à la perception de la parole. En somme, ce mémoire apporte de nouvelles connaissances sur la nature des difficultés de perception de la parole, les effets du chant choral sur cette capacité ainsi que les mécanismes neurobiologiques sous-tendant ces effets.Perceiving speech in noise becomes difficult in aging. The causes of these difficulties are mixed, but age-related decline of the dorsal speech stream may be a contributing factor. The practice of choral singing may help slow brain aging, but the effects of choral singing are not well known. The objectives of this master’s thesis were to investigate the relationship between the structural decline of the dorsal speech stream and difficulties in speech perception, and to identify how this relationship is modified by the practice of choral singing. 44 singers and 41 non-singers, young and old, completed a magnetic resonance imaging session, as well as cognitive and auditory assessments. A subgroup completed a syllable discrimination in noise task. In the first study, behavioural benefits were observed for older singers with certain characteristics related to their practice, suggesting that choral singing has the potential to benefit speech perception only under certain conditions. These benefits were particularly associated with the structure of regions of the dorsal speech stream. In a second study, the decline in the structure of several frontotemporal segments of the arcuate fasciculus,one of the main white matter fasciculi constituting the dorsal speech stream, was associated with the decline in speech perception. In addition, differences in structural asymmetry of the arcuate fasciculus were identified between groups, but these differences were not related to speech perception. In sum,these studies clarify the origin of speech perception difficulties in noise, the effects of choral singing on this ability, and the mechanisms underlying these effects

Quelles alternatives à la croissance infinie?

Le but de cet essai est, d’une part, de poser une réflexion sur les liens existants entre l’actuelle économie capitaliste néolibérale, la foi dans une croissance économique illimitée dans un contexte de croissance démographique et de ressources limitées; et d’y opposer, d’autre part, les valeurs prônées pour la construction d’une société et d’une économie alternative

Auditory cognitive aging in amateur singers and non-singers

The notion that lifestyle factors, such as music-making activities, can affect cognitive functioning and reduce cognitive decline in aging is often referred to as the mental exercise hypothesis. One ubiquitous musical activity is choir singing. Like other musical activities, singing is hypothesized to impact cognitive and especially executive functions. Despite the commonness of choir singing, little is known about the extent to which singing can affect cognition in adulthood. In this cross-sectional group study, we examined the relationship between age and four auditory executive functions to test hypotheses about the relationship between the level of mental activity and cognitive functioning. We also examined pitch discrimination capabilities. A non-probabilistic sample of 147 cognitively healthy adults was recruited, which included 75 non-singers (mean age 52.5 ± 20.3; 20-98 years) and 72 singers (mean age 55.5 ± 19.2; 21-87 years). Tests of selective attention, processing speed, inhibitory control, and working memory were administered to all participants. Our main hypothesis was that executive functions and age would be negatively correlated, and that this relationship would be stronger in non-singers than singers, consistent with the differential preservation hypothesis. The alternative hypothesis - preserved differentiation – predicts that the difference between singers and non-singers in executive functions is unaffected by age. Our results reveal a detrimental effect of age on processing speed, selective attention, inhibitory control and working memory. The effect of singing was comparatively more limited, being positively associated only with frequency discrimination, processing speed, and, to some extent, inhibitory control. Evidence of differential preservation was limited to processing speed. We also found a circumscribed positive impact of age of onset and a negative impact of singing experience on cognitive functioning in singers. Together, these findings were interpreted as reflecting an age-related decline in executive function in cognitively healthy adults, with specific and limited positive impacts of singing, consistent with the preserved differentiation hypothesis, but not with the differential preservation hypothesis

Amateur singing benefits speech perception in aging under certain conditions of practice : behavioural and neurobiological mechanisms.

Limited evidence has shown that practising musical activities in aging, such as choral singing, could lessen age-related speech perception in noise (SPiN) difficulties. However, the robustness and underlying mechanism of action of this phenomenon remain unclear. In this study, we used surfacebased morphometry combined with a moderated mediation analytic approach to examine whether singing-related plasticity in auditory and dorsal speech stream regions is associated with better SPiN capabilities. 36 choral singers and 36 non-singers aged 20-87 years underwent cognitive, auditory, and SPiN assessments. Our results provide important new insights into experience-dependent plasticity by revealing that, under certain conditions of practice, amateur choral singing is associated with agedependent structural plasticity within auditory and dorsal speech regions, which is associated with better SPiN performance in aging. Specifically, the conditions of practice that were associated with benefits on SPiN included frequent weekly practice at home, several hours of weekly group singing practice, singing in multiple languages, and having received formal singing training. These results suggest that amateur choral singing is associated with improved SPiN through a dual mechanism involving auditory processing and auditory-motor integration and may be dose dependent, with more intense singing associated with greater benefit. Our results thus reveal that the relationship between singing practice and SPiN is complex, and underscore the importance of considering singing practice behaviours in understanding the effects of musical activities on the brain-behaviour relationship