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Dissociating speech perception and comprehension at reduced levels of awareness

Davis M.H., Coleman M.R., Absalom A.R., Rodd J.M., Johnsrude I. S., Matta B. F., Owen A.M., Menon D.K. (2007) . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 104(41), 16032-16037.

You can download the paper, read further information from the MRC, read reports from Nature News and Anaesthesiology News, or listen to an interview on Radio 4.

To listen to example stimuli and to see example brain images, click here.

Abstract:

We used fMRI and the anaesthetic agent propofol to assess the relationship between neural responses to speech, successful comprehension and conscious awareness. Volunteers were scanned while listening to sentences containing ambiguous words, matched sentences without ambiguous words and signal correlated noise (SCN). During three scanning sessions, participants were nonsedated (awake), lightly sedated (a slowed response to conversation) and deeply sedated (no conversational response, rousable by loud command). Bilateral temporal-lobe responses for sentences compared to SCN were observed at all three levels of sedation, although prefrontal and premotor responses to speech were absent at the deepest level of sedation. Additional inferior frontal and posterior temporal responses to ambiguous sentences provide a neural correlate of semantic processes that are critical for comprehending sentences containing ambiguous words. However, this additional response was absent during light sedation, suggesting a marked impairment of sentence comprehension. A significant decline in post-scan recognition memory for sentences also suggests that sedation impaired encoding of sentences into memory with left inferior frontal and temporal lobe responses during light sedation predicting subsequent recognition memory. These findings suggest a graded degradation of cognitive function in response to sedation such that 'higher-level' semantic and mnemonic processes can be impaired at relatively low levels of sedation, while perceptual processing of speech remains resilient even during deep sedation. These results have important implications for understanding the relationship between speech comprehension and awareness in the healthy brain, in patients receiving sedation, and in patients with disorders of consciousness.

Thanks to Berger & Wyse, and the Guardian Weekend for the perfect executive summary:

Cartoon by Berger and Wyse from the Weekend Guardian, 17th November 2007


This page was updated on 15th January 2008. Comments and suggestions to matt.davis@mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk.

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