Structured neuronal encoding and decoding of human speech features

Ariel Tankus, Itzhak Fried () and Shy Shoham ()
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Ariel Tankus: David Geffen School of Medicine, and Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California
Itzhak Fried: David Geffen School of Medicine, and Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California
Shy Shoham: Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Technion City, Haifa 32000, Israel.

Nature Communications, 2012, vol. 3, issue 1, 1-5

Abstract: Abstract Human speech sounds are produced through a coordinated movement of structures along the vocal tract. Here we show highly structured neuronal encoding of vowel articulation. In medial–frontal neurons, we observe highly specific tuning to individual vowels, whereas superior temporal gyrus neurons have nonspecific, sinusoidally modulated tuning (analogous to motor cortical directional tuning). At the neuronal population level, a decoding analysis reveals that the underlying structure of vowel encoding reflects the anatomical basis of articulatory movements. This structured encoding enables accurate decoding of volitional speech segments and could be applied in the development of brain–machine interfaces for restoring speech in paralysed individuals.

Date: 2012
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1995

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