Speech Motor Learning and Retention (Aim 2)

Summary

The overall goal of this research is to test a new model of speech motor learning, whose central hypothesis is that learning and retention are associated with plasticity not only in motor areas of the brain but in auditory and somatosensory regions as well. The strategy for the proposed research is to identify individual brain areas that contribute causally to retention by disrupting their activity with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Investigators will also use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) which will enable identification of circuit-level activity which predicts either learning or retention of new movements, and hence test the specific contributions of candidate sensory and motor zones. In other studies, investigators will record sensory and motor evoked potentials over the course of learning to determine the temporal order in which individual sensory and cortical motor regions contribute. The goal here is to identify brain areas in which learning-related plasticity occurs first and which among these areas predict subsequent learning.

Conditions

• Speech

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Adaptation

Auditory adaptation in speech

BEHAVIORAL

Adaptation baseline

Auditory baseline in speech

DEVICE

Motor evoked potentials

motor evoked potentials will be obtained in each recording block

DEVICE

Auditory evoked potentials

auditory evoked potentials will be obtained in each recording block

DEVICE

Somatosensory evoked potentials

Somatosensry evoked potentials will be obtained in each recording block

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)

  collaborator NIH

• Yale University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• David Ostry · Yale University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

40 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-10-01

Primary Completion

2028-11-30

Completion

2029-05-31

FDA Device

Yes

Countries

• United States

Study Locations