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Unveiling the Neonatal Structural Substrates of Speech Sound Encoding through Brain Morphometry
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Poster C100 in Poster Session C, Wednesday, October 25, 10:15 am - 12:00 pm CEST, Espace Vieux-Port
Siham Ijjou Kadiri1,2,3, Marta Puertollano1,2,3, Manuel Blesa6, Natàlia Gorina-Careta3,4, Mónica Rebollo-Polo3,5, Josep Munuera3,5, M. Dolores Gómez-Roig3,4, Carles Escera1,2,3; 1Brainlab – Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona, Spain, 2Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 3Institut de Recerca San Joan de Déu (IRSJD), Esplugues de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain, 4BCNatal – Barcelona Center for Maternal-Fetal and Neonatal Medicine (Hospital Sant Joan de Déu and Hospital Clínic), Barcelona, Spain, 5Servei de Diagnòstic per la Imatge, Hospital maternoinfantil Sant Joan de Déu, Barcelona, Spain 5 MRC Centre for Reproductive Health, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK, 6MRC Centre for Reproductive Health, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
During the third trimester of pregnancy, the human brain undergoes developmental changes, such as myelination, gyrification, and increased gray matter volume, which can be decoded and related to functionality using MRI and EEG at birth. Although adult studies indicate a correlation between specific auditory brain regions and hearing/language abilities, volumetric anatomo-functional correlates in neonatal populations remain unexplored. This study aims to investigate the relationship between the volume of language/speech perception brain regions and an auditory evoked potential termed Frequency-Following Response (FFR) at birth. This study involved 41 healthy term neonates who underwent EEG and MRI exams within a two-week interval. The FFR was elicited to a two-vowel stimulus (/oa/) and analyzed in terms of pitch tracking and encoding of both its fundamental frequency and temporal fine structure. MRI neuroimages were processed using the Developing Human Connectome Project structural pipeline to obtain volume indices of specific regions of interest (ROIs), including the corpus callosum, superior, medial, and inferior temporal gyrus, and insula, which were segmented into both left and right hemispheres and white and grey matter parts. Next, 2 raters carried out a manual parcellation of the corpus callosum following the Witelson method (satisfactory ICC). Statistically, we applied Pearson partial correlations to establish the relationship between volume indices and the FFR parameters. General Linear Models were subsequently constructed using statistically relevant FFR parameters as a response and significant ROIs as predictors. Statistically significant positive correlations with fundamental frequency encoding were observed in the white matter segments of the medial and inferior temporal gyrus (MITG) and the entire right medial superior temporal gyrus (STG) (p < .05). Furthermore, a strong positive correlation was found between neural lag and the posterior right white matter region of the STG (p < .01). Conversely, the medial right white matter segment of the STG exhibited a significant negative association with pitch tracking measures (p < .001). In terms of temporal fine structure encoding, the corpus callosum played a significant role, with negative correlations observed in the posterior parts (from anterior midbody to the isthmus), while the splenium showed a positive correlation (p < .05). The general linear model analysis revealed a significant negative main effect of the posterior midbody volume (p =.01, R^2=.32) on temporal fine structure encoding after log transforming it, controlling for sex, age at scan and birth weight. This study explored the relationship between volume of auditory/language regions and speech encoding function in neonates, contributing to the anatomical characterization of the FFR at birth. Our findings suggest that white matter regions within our ROIs play a more significant role than grey matter subregions in speech processing. Specifically, the posterior midbody of the corpus callosum had a negative contribution to temporal fine structure encoding. These findings provide initial evidence linking anatomical and functional aspects of speech processing using the FFR at birth. Funding: Project PID2021-122255NB-100 (MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER,UE), María de Maeztu Center of Excellence CEX2021-001159-M (MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033), the 2021SGR-00356 Consolidated Research Group of the Catalan Government, and the ICREA Acadèmia Distinguished Professorship awarded to Carles Escera.
Topic Areas: Language Development/Acquisition, Speech Perception