Prior multisensory learning can facilitate auditory-only voice-identity and speech recognition in noise

We thank Laura Smith for her work on the project including data collection and preparation. We also thank Nicola Frasson for help with additional data collection and Juliane Liebsch for supporting data analysisPeer reviewe

Reply to: New Meta- and Mega-analyses of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Findings in Schizophrenia: Do They Really Increase Our Knowledge About the Nature of the Disease Process?

This work was supported by National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering Grant No. U54EB020403 (to the ENIGMA consortium)

Large-scale analysis of structural brain asymmetries in schizophrenia via the ENIGMA consortium

Left-right asymmetry is an important organizing feature of the healthy brain that may be altered in schizophrenia, but most studies have used relatively small samples and heterogeneous approaches, resulting in equivocal findings. We carried out the largest case-control study of structural brain asymmetries in schizophrenia, using MRI data from 5,080 affected individuals and 6,015 controls across 46 datasets in the ENIGMA consortium, using a single image analysis protocol. Asymmetry indexes were calculated for global and regional cortical thickness, surface area, and subcortical volume measures. Differences of asymmetry were calculated between affected individuals and controls per dataset, and effect sizes were meta-analyzed across datasets. Small average case-control differences were observed for thickness asymmetries of the rostral anterior cingulate and the middle temporal gyrus, both driven by thinner left-hemispheric cortices in schizophrenia. Analyses of these asymmetries with respect to the use of antipsychotic medication and other clinical variables did not show any significant associations. Assessment of age- and sex-specific effects revealed a stronger average leftward asymmetry of pallidum volume between older cases and controls. Case-control differences in a multivariate context were assessed in a subset of the data (N = 2,029), which revealed that 7% of the variance across all structural asymmetries was explained by case-control status. Subtle case-control differences of brain macro-structural asymmetry may reflect differences at the molecular, cytoarchitectonic or circuit levels that have functional relevance for the disorder. Reduced left middle temporal cortical thickness is consistent with altered left-hemisphere language network organization in schizophrenia

Cortical brain abnormalities in 4474 individuals with schizophrenia and 5098 control subjects via the enhancing neuro Imaging genetics through meta analysis (ENIGMA) Consortium

BACKGROUND: The profile of cortical neuroanatomical abnormalities in schizophrenia is not fully understood, despite hundreds of published structural brain imaging studies. This study presents the first meta-analysis of cortical thickness and surface area abnormalities in schizophrenia conducted by the ENIGMA (Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta Analysis) Schizophrenia Working Group. METHODS: The study included data from 4474 individuals with schizophrenia (mean age, 32.3 years; range, 11-78 years; 66% male) and 5098 healthy volunteers (mean age, 32.8 years; range, 10-87 years; 53% male) assessed with standardized methods at 39 centers worldwide. RESULTS: Compared with healthy volunteers, individuals with schizophrenia have widespread thinner cortex (left/right hemisphere: Cohen's d = -0.530/-0.516) and smaller surface area (left/right hemisphere: Cohen's d = -0.251/-0.254), with the largest effect sizes for both in frontal and temporal lobe regions. Regional group differences in cortical thickness remained significant when statistically controlling for global cortical thickness, suggesting regional specificity. In contrast, effects for cortical surface area appear global. Case-control, negative, cortical thickness effect sizes were two to three times larger in individuals receiving antipsychotic medication relative to unmedicated individuals. Negative correlations between age and bilateral temporal pole thickness were stronger in individuals with schizophrenia than in healthy volunteers. Regional cortical thickness showed significant negative correlations with normalized medication dose, symptom severity, and duration of illness and positive correlations with age at onset. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that the ENIGMA meta-analysis approach can achieve robust findings in clinical neuroscience studies; also, medication effects should be taken into account in future genetic association studies of cortical thickness in schizophrenia

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

10Kin1day: A Bottom-Up Neuroimaging Initiative.

We organized 10Kin1day, a pop-up scientific event with the goal to bring together neuroimaging groups from around the world to jointly analyze 10,000+ existing MRI connectivity datasets during a 3-day workshop. In this report, we describe the motivation and principles of 10Kin1day, together with a public release of 8,000+ MRI connectome maps of the human brain

The face in your voice–how audiovisual learning benefits vocal communication

Gesicht und Stimme einer Person sind stark miteinander assoziiert und werden normalerweise als eine Einheit wahrgenommen. Trotz des natürlichen gemeinsamen Auftretens von Gesichtern und Stimmen, wurden deren Wahrnehmung in den Neurowissenschaften traditionell aus einer unisensorischen Perspektive untersucht. Das heißt, dass sich Forschung zu Gesichtswahrnehmung ausschließlich auf das visuelle System fokusierte, während Forschung zu Stimmwahrnehmung nur das auditorische System untersuchte. In dieser Arbeit schlage ich vor, dass das Gehirn an die multisensorische Beschaffenheit von Gesichtern und Stimmen adaptiert ist, und dass diese Adaption sogar dann sichtbar ist, wenn nur die Stimme einer Person gehört wird, ohne dass das Gesicht zu sehen ist. Im Besonderen, untersucht diese Arbeit wie das Gehirn zuvor gelernte Gesichts-Stimmassoziationen ausnutzt um die auditorische Analyse von Stimmen und Sprache zu optimieren. Diese Dissertation besteht aus drei empirischen Studien, welche raumzeitliche Hirnaktivität mittels funktionaler Magnetresonanztomographie (fMRT) und Magnetoenzephalographie (MEG) liefern. Alle Daten wurden gemessen, während Versuchspersonen auditive Sprachbeispiele von zuvor familiarisierten Sprechern (mit oder ohne Gesicht des Sprechers) hörten. Drei Ergebnisse zeigen, dass zuvor gelernte visuelle Sprecherinformationen zur auditorischen Analyse von Stimmen beitragen: (i) gesichtssensible Areale waren Teil des sensorischen Netzwerks, dass durch Stimmen aktiviert wurde, (ii) die auditorische Verarbeitung von Stimmen war durch die gelernte Gesichtsinformation zeitlich faszilitiert und (iii) multisensorische Interaktionen zwischen gesichtsensiblen und stimm-/sprachsensiblen Arealen waren verstärkt. Die vorliegende Arbeit stellt den traditionellen, unisensorischen Blickwinkel auf die Wahrnehmung von Stimmen und Sprache in Frage und legt nahe, dass die Wahrnehmung von Stimme und Sprache von von einem multisensorischen Verarbeitungsschema profitiert.Face and voice of a person are strongly associated with each other and usually perceived as a single entity. Despite the natural co-occurrence of faces and voices, brain research has traditionally approached their perception from a unisensory perspective. This means that research into face perception has exclusively focused on the visual system, while research into voice perception has exclusively probed the auditory system. In this thesis, I suggest that the brain has adapted to the multisensory nature of faces and voices and that this adaptation is evident even when one input stream is missing, that is, when input is actually unisensory. Specifically, the current work investigates how the brain exploits previously learned voice-face associations to optimize the auditory processing of voices and vocal speech. Three empirical studies providing spatiotemporal brain data—via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG)—constitute this thesis. All data were acquired while participants listened to auditory-only speech samples of previously familiarized speakers (with or without seeing the speakers’ faces). Three key findings demonstrate that previously learned visual speaker information support the auditory analysis of vocal sounds: (i) face-sensitive areas were part of the sensory network activated by voices, (ii) the auditory analysis of voices was temporally facilitated by learned facial associations and (iii) multisensory interactions between face- and voice/speech-sensitive regions were increased. The current work challenges traditional unisensory views on vocal perception and rather suggests that voice and vocal speech perception profit from a multisensory neural processing scheme

Functional Connectivity between Face-Movement and Speech-Intelligibility Areas during Auditory-Only Speech Perception

<div><p>It has been proposed that internal simulation of the talking face of visually-known speakers facilitates auditory speech recognition. One prediction of this view is that brain areas involved in auditory-only speech comprehension interact with visual face-movement sensitive areas, even under auditory-only listening conditions. Here, we test this hypothesis using connectivity analyses of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Participants (17 normal participants, 17 developmental prosopagnosics) first learned six speakers via brief voice-face or voice-occupation training (<2 min/speaker). This was followed by an auditory-only speech recognition task and a control task (voice recognition) involving the learned speakers’ voices in the MRI scanner. As hypothesized, we found that, during speech recognition, familiarity with the speaker’s face increased the functional connectivity between the face-movement sensitive posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) and an anterior STS region that supports auditory speech intelligibility. There was no difference between normal participants and prosopagnosics. This was expected because previous findings have shown that both groups use the face-movement sensitive STS to optimize auditory-only speech comprehension. Overall, the present findings indicate that learned visual information is integrated into the analysis of auditory-only speech and that this integration results from the interaction of task-relevant face-movement and auditory speech-sensitive areas.</p></div

Hypotheses.

<p>Visual information about a speaker is integrated into the auditory analysis via functional connections (black arrows) between face-sensitive regions (blue) and higher-level auditory regions (yellow). Previous studies have shown that, during voice recognition, functional connectivity increases between the face-identity sensitive FFA and the voice-sensitive anterior/mid STS in the right temporal lobe (right side of the figure) (von Kriegstein and Giraud, 2006). In the present study, we tested whether, during speech recognition, functional interactions exist between the face-movement sensitive pSTS and speech-intelligibility sensitive areas in the aSTG/S in the left temporal lobe. In addition, we tested whether the integration of visual information into auditory information relies on the ability to recognize faces, by comparing a group of developmental prosopagnosics (i.e., people with a face-recognition deficit) with a group of normal participants. aSTG/S: anterior superior temporal gyrus/sulcus.</p