Spectro-temporal dynamics of sensorimotor integration underlying laterlization of speech production

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Christian Alexander Kell
• Subject Area: Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: from 2012 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 215939064

Since 150 years, speech processing has been viewed as a function of the brain’s left hemisphere. Yet, one major question has not been answered since Paul Broca’s and Carl Wernicke’s observations: Which feature grants the left hemisphere an advantage to process speech? While speech perception can be performed also reasonably well with the right, speech production largely depends on an intact left hemisphere. Thus, speech production necessitates processes that are better performed on the left than on the right. Previous findings indicate that the reason for left2 lateralized speech production is not a primary specialization of left motor cortex function. Instead, a more precise analysis of relatively faster changes in the speech signal in auditory cortex could bias speech-relevant interactions between auditory and motor cortex to the left hemisphere. We wish to isolate the temporal dynamics of sensorimotor interactions that induce this lateralization. To address this question, we plan to study the hemispheric differences in interactions between auditory and motor cortices using magnetoencephalography, electrocorticography, and functional magnetic resonance imaging during the preparation and execution of speech perception and production. The results may add to our understanding of how the brain generates behavior on the basis of interaction of its parts.

• DFG Programme: Independent Junior Research Groups