Investigating the attentional effect and stimulus selectivity at the brainstem during auditory selective attention to dichotically presented /ba/ and /da/ stimuli

Articles in Press

Document Type : Article

Authors

1 Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran. -Research Center for Biomedical Technologies and Robotics (RCBTR), Tehran, Iran

2 -Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran. -Computational Neuroscience, Institute of Medical Technology, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg,

3 Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran. - Research Center for Biomedical Technologies and Robotics (RCBTR), Tehran, Iran.

4 Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran. Research Center for Biomedical Technologies and Robotics (RCBTR), Tehran, Iran

5 Department of Audiology, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS), Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

While selective attention is known to modulate speech encoding in cortical responses, it is unclear whether such modulation also occurs in brainstem responses. The present study investigates the impact of selective attention on brainstem responses to consonant-vowel stimuli. The study examined auditory brainstem responses to dichotically delivered /ba/ and /da/ in 15 normal hearing subjects (8 males). Subjects were asked to selectively attend to a stimulus, and their responses were evaluated using the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) and phase difference comparison. Our findings reveal significant changes in the mean phase values for brainstem responses during selective attention. The mean phase values in brainstem responses to da were consistently positive, whereas those in brainstem responses to ba were consistently negative compared to responses without attention. In the steady-state region, the mean difference of the brainstem responses varied in the high frequency (-0.022±0.008, 0.021±0.007) and middle frequency (-0.026±0.008, 0.024±0.007) ranges. Furthermore, the high frequency of the transitional part of the response changed (-0.024±0.01, 0.033±0.009) when attention was directed to /ba/ and /da/, respectively. Our findings suggest that selective attention can significantly alter brainstem responses during auditory processing, resulting in significant phase changes in both the middle and high-frequency ranges.

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Scientia Iranica

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 28 April 2024

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History

  • Receive Date: 04 November 2023
  • Revise Date: 11 February 2024
  • Accept Date: 28 April 2024

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