Among primates, humans are uniquely able to consciously control the pitch of their voices, making it possible to hit high notes in singing or stress a word in a sentence to convey meaning. In the journal Cell, researchers narrow in on a region of the brain's frontal lobe that controls the "voice box" muscles that are responsible for vocal pitch.
"Our overall goal is to understand how the brain allows us to communicate through speech and language. In this particular study, we wanted to pin down how neural activity controls vocal pitch in the larynx when we talk," says senior author. "It might have implications for understanding how humans evolved the ability to speak."
Researchers examined a region of the brain called the bilateral dorsal laryngeal motor cortex (dLMC), which is known to lie between the regions controlling the hand and mouth. They asked twelve participants to repeatedly speak the sentence, "I never said she stole my money," changing the pitch of different words every time to convey exclamations, accusations, or queries. And as each emphasized word was uttered, the researchers saw increased activity in the dLMC, suggesting that it was linked to the change in vocal pitch.
The researchers worked closely with patient volunteers, who underwent temporary implantation of brain sensors for the treatment of epileptic seizures. "Participating in the research during treatment does not change their medical care, and it's something that's completely voluntary," says the senior uthor, "and this was a unique opportunity to understand what's going on in the brain at high resolution, on the order of millimeters and milliseconds."
When the researchers also probed neurons in the dLMC with small electrical currents as part of brain-mapping procedures, they could evoke movement of the muscles in the larynx, as well as generate vocalizations as a direct result of the artificial stimulation. This allowed them to demonstrate causality for the role of dLMC in vocalizations. "Further, within this laryngeal control area, we found specific subareas corresponding to specific larynx muscles and functions, which was very unexpected," senior author says.
One next step will be to investigate the way the dLMC's control of vocal pitch functions in languages other than English, especially tonal languages like Mandarin Chinese in which vocal pitch patterns are used differently.
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(18)30593-2
The neuroscience of human vocal pitch
- 2,255 views
- Added
Edited
Latest News
Abusive drugs hijack natura…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Apr
Mechanism of action of the…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Apr
Role of fat in rare neurolo…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Apr
How protein synthesis in de…
By newseditor
Posted 22 Apr
Atlas of mRNA variants in d…
By newseditor
Posted 22 Apr
Other Top Stories
Cholesterol reduction in monkeys by gene editing!
Read more
Addictive behavior gene identified!
Read more
Why baby's sex may influence risk of pregnancy-related complicatations
Read more
Is sleep an antioxidant?
Read more
Memory identity is stored in specific synapses
Read more
Protocols
A programmable targeted pro…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Apr
MemPrep, a new technology f…
By newseditor
Posted 08 Apr
A tangible method to assess…
By newseditor
Posted 08 Apr
Stem cell-derived vessels-o…
By newseditor
Posted 06 Apr
Single-cell biclustering fo…
By newseditor
Posted 01 Apr
Publications
Exploiting pancreatic cance…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Apr
Structure of antiviral drug…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Apr
Type-I-interferon-responsiv…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Apr
Selenium, diabetes, and the…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Apr
Long-term neuropsychologica…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Apr
Presentations
Hydrogels in Drug Delivery
By newseditor
Posted 12 Apr
Lipids
By newseditor
Posted 31 Dec
Cell biology of carbohydrat…
By newseditor
Posted 29 Nov
RNA interference (RNAi)
By newseditor
Posted 23 Oct
RNA structure and functions
By newseditor
Posted 19 Oct
Posters
A chemical biology/modular…
By newseditor
Posted 22 Aug
Single-molecule covalent ma…
By newseditor
Posted 04 Jul
ASCO-2020-HEALTH SERVICES R…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Mar
ASCO-2020-HEAD AND NECK CANCER
By newseditor
Posted 23 Mar
ASCO-2020-GENITOURINARY CAN…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Mar