# Electrophysiological Approaches to Understanding Functional Organization of Speech in the Brain

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN · 2022 · $38,063

## Abstract

ABSTRACT FROM PARENT R01
To understand speech, the human brain must parse and transform a noisy acoustic signal into meaningful
linguistic content, including phonemes, syllables, words, and sentences. This involves determining the timing of
important acoustic events, such as the onset of a sentence or a phrase. Following detection of these onsets,
the content of the sentence must be determined. The posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG)—including the
classic “Wernicke’s area”—is critical to this process, but until recently, little was known about its functional
organization, and in particular how this functional organization changes throughout development. Our recent
work showed that a spatially discrete region of the pSTG is critical for indicating when a sentence or phrase
begins. This region is distinct spatially and functionally from more anterior “sustained” areas that encode
phonetic feature information throughout a sentence. Functionally, both posterior onset and anterior sustained
regions show short and long temporal integration times, respectively, suggesting complimentary roles in
natural speech processing. Here, we propose an innovative approach using rare datasets where neural activity
is recorded directly from the human auditory cortex and speech-related areas in pediatric patient participants
undergoing clinical evaluation for epilepsy surgery. This method overcomes the spatial and temporal resolution
limitations of other noninvasive procedures, and provides a rare window into the function of the human auditory
cortex. The proposed study will use high resolution intracranial recordings to investigate how the brain detects
acoustic onsets in natural speech sound mixtures, and how neurophysiological responses to these sounds
change from early childhood to adolescence. Furthermore, we will investigate how these responses to onsets
are modulated by context, including during attention and for self-generated sounds. In addition to providing
insight into the basic functional organization of the human auditory cortex and cortical mechanisms for auditory
scene analysis, this research has important implications for the development of a speech brain computer
interface. Our results could also inform how speech and language are processed in natural contexts, which has
implications for the treatment of developmental language disorders, auditory processing disorder, dyslexia,
autism, and aphasia.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10608318
- **Project number:** 3R01DC018579-02S1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
- **Principal Investigator:** J Liberty S Hamilton
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $38,063
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2020-12-01 → 2025-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10608318

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10608318, Electrophysiological Approaches to Understanding Functional Organization of Speech in the Brain (3R01DC018579-02S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10608318. Licensed CC0.

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