Single-trial speech suppression of auditory cortex activity in humans

Adeen Flinker, Edward F. Chang, Heidi E. Kirsch, Nicholas M. Barbaro, Nathan E. Crone, Robert T. Knight

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

108 Scopus citations

Abstract

The human auditory cortex is engaged in monitoring the speech of interlocutors as well as self-generated speech. During vocalization, auditory cortex activity is reported to be suppressed, an effect often attributed to the influence of an efference copy from motor cortex. Single-unit studies in non-human primates have demonstrated a rich dynamic range of single-trial auditory responses to self-speech consisting of suppressed, nonsuppressed and excited auditory neurons. However, human research using noninvasive methods has only reported suppression of averaged auditory cortex responses to self-generated speech. We addressed this discrepancy by recording electrocorticographic activity from neurosurgical subjects performing auditory repetition tasks. We observed that the degree of suppression varied across different regions of auditory cortex, revealing a variety of suppressed and nonsuppressed responses during vocalization. Importantly, single-trial high-gamma power (γHigh, 70-150 Hz) robustly tracked individual auditory events and exhibited stable responses across trials for suppressed and nonsuppressed regions.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)16643-16650
Number of pages8
JournalJournal of Neuroscience
Volume30
Issue number49
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 8 2010

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Neuroscience

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