Neural encoding of voice pitch and formant structure at birth as revealed by frequency-following responses

Publication date
2021-03-23
Document type
Research article
Author
Costa-Faidella, Jordi
Ribas-Prats, Teresa
Gómez-Roig, María Dolores
Escera, Carles
Organisational unit
Brainlab‑Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Institut de Recerca Sant Joan de Déu (IRSJD), Esplugues de Llobregat, Catalonia, Spain
BCNatal‑Barcelona Center for Maternal Fetal and Neonatal Medicine (Hospital Sant Joan de Déu and Hospital Clínic), University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
DOI
URI
Publisher
Springer Nature
Series or journal
Scientific Reports
ISSN
Periodical volume
11
Article ID
6660
Peer-reviewed
✅
Part of the university bibliography
Nein
Language
English
Abstract
Detailed neural encoding of voice pitch and formant structure plays a crucial role in speech perception, and is of key importance for an appropriate acquisition of the phonetic repertoire in infants since birth. However, the extent to what newborns are capable of extracting pitch and formant structure information from the temporal envelope and the temporal fine structure of speech sounds, respectively, remains unclear. Here, we recorded the frequency-following response (FFR) elicited by a novel two-vowel, rising-pitch-ending stimulus to simultaneously characterize voice pitch and formant structure encoding accuracy in a sample of neonates and adults. Data revealed that newborns tracked changes in voice pitch reliably and no differently than adults, but exhibited weaker signatures of formant structure encoding, particularly at higher formant frequency ranges. Thus, our results indicate a well-developed encoding of voice pitch at birth, while formant structure representation is maturing in a frequency-dependent manner. Furthermore, we demonstrate the feasibility to assess voice pitch and formant structure encoding within clinical evaluation times in a hospital setting, and suggest the possibility to use this novel stimulus as a tool for longitudinal developmental studies of the auditory system.
Description
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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Published version
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