Developmental differences in the hemodynamic response to changes in lyrics and melodies by 4- and 12-month-old infants

Songs and speech play central roles in early caretaker-infant communicative interactions, which are crucial for infants' cognitive, social, and emotional development. Compared to speech development, however, much less is known about how infants process songs or how songs affect their development. Lyrics and melody are two key components of songs, and much of the research on song processing has examined how the two components of the songs are processed. The current study focused on the roles of lyrics and melody in song perception, by examining developmental patterns and the ways in which lyrics and melody are processed in the infants' brains using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). The results revealed that developmental changes occur in infants' processing of lyrics and melody in a similar timeline as perceptual reorganization, that is, from 4.5 and 12 months of age. We found that 4.5-month-olds showed a right hemispheric advantage in the processing of songs that underwent a change in either lyrics or melodies. Conversely, 12-month-olds showed significantly higher activation bilaterally when lyrics and melody changed at the same time. These results suggest that 4.5-month-olds processed songs in the same manner as music without lyrics. Moreover, 12-month-olds processed lyrics and melody in an interactive manner, a sign of a more mature processing method. These findings highlight the importance of investigating the independent development of music and language, and also considering the relationship between speech and song, lyrics and melody in song, and speech and music more broadly.


Response time differences between men and women during hand mental rotation

This study explored gender differences in correct response rates and response times on a task involving left or right arrow selection and another involving the transformation of mental rotation of the hand. We recruited 15 healthy, right-handed men (age 24.5 ± 6.4) and 15 healthy, right-handed women (age 21.3 ± 4.9). For the tasks, we used pictures of left and right arrows and 32 hand pictures (left and right, palm and back) placed in cons (each at 45° from 0° to 315°). Hand and arrow pictures alternated and were shown at random. Participants decided as quickly as possible whether each picture was left or right. To compare the time taken for the transformation of mental rotation of the hand, we subtracted the average arrow response time from that for the left and right hand pictures for each participant. Correct response rates did not differ significantly between men and women or left and right for either arrow or hand pictures. Regardless of gender, the response time was longer for the left arrow picture than right arrow picture. The response time for the hand picture was longest for both men and women for pictures at rotation angles that were most difficult to align with participants' hands. While there was no difference between men's responses for left and right hand pictures, the responses of women were longer for left than right hand pictures and also than those of men. These findings suggest that both men and women mainly perform the hand mental rotation task with implicit motor imagery. On the other hand, the gender difference in performance might be explained by the difference in balance with other strategies, such as visual imagery, and by cognitive, neurophysiological, and morphological differences.


Difference in response times on hand mental rotation task between the back and palm of the hand in elderly individuals


Performing strategy of hand mental rotation task in patients with schizophrenia


Performing strategy of hand mental rotation task in hemiplegic stroke patients.


Effects of arundic acid, an astrocytic modulator, on the cerebral and respiratory functions in severe hypoxia

Mild hypoxia increases ventilation, but severe hypoxia depresses it. The mechanism of hypoxic ventilatory depression, in particular, the functional role of the cerebrum, is not fully understood. Recent progress in glial physiology has provided evidence that astrocytes play active roles in information processing in various brain functions. We investigated the hypothesis that astrocytic activation is necessary to maintain the cerebral function and ventilation in hypoxia, by examining the responses of EEG and ventilation to severe hypoxia before and after administration of a modulator of astrocytic function, arundic acid, in unanesthetized mice. Ventilatory parameters were measured by whole body plethysmography. When hypoxic ventilatory depression occurred, gamma frequency band of EEG was suppressed. Arundic acid further suppressed ventilation, and the EEG power was suppressed in a dose-dependent manner. Arundic acid also suppressed hypoxia-induced c-Fos expression in the hypothalamus. We conclude that severe hypoxia suppresses the cerebral function which could reduce the stimulus to the brainstem resulting in ventilatory depression. Astrocytic activation in hypoxia may counteract both cerebral and ventilatory suppression.


Respiratory Toxicity of Dimethyl Sulfoxide

Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is one of the most commonly used solvents for hydrophobic substances in biological experiments. In addition, the compound exhibits a plethora of bioactivities, which makes it of potential pharmacological use of its own. The influence on respiration, and thus on arterial blood oxygenation, of DMSO is unclear, contentious, and an area of limited study. Thus, in the present investigation we set out to determine the influence on lung ventilation of cumulated doses of DMSO in the amount of 0.5, 1.5, 3.5, 7.5, and 15.5 g/kg; each dose given intraperitoneally at 1 h interval in conscious mice. Ventilation and its responses to 7 % hypoxia (N2 balanced) were recorded in a whole body plethsymograph. We demonstrate a dose-dependent inhibitory effect of DMSO on lung ventilation and its hypoxic responsiveness, driven mostly by changes in the tidal component. The maximum safe dose of DMSO devoid of meaningful consequences for respiratory function was 3.5 g/kg. The dose of 7.5 g/kg of DMSO significantly dampened respiration, with yet well preserved hyperventilatory response to hypoxia. The highest dose of 15.5 g/kg severely impaired ventilation and its responses. The study delineates the safety profile of DMSO regarding the respiratory function which is essential for maintaining proper tissue oxygenation. Caution should be exercised concerning dose concentration of DMSO.

Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology


The hypoxic ventilatory response and TRPA1 antagonism in conscious mice.

Recently, TRPA1 channels, richly expressed in both peripheral and central neural systems, have been proposed as novel sensors of changes in oxygen concentration along the hypoxic-hyperoxic continuum. In this study, we investigated the hypothesis that TRPA1 channels blockade should profoundly affect the hypoxic ventilatory response (HVR). We examined the chemosensory ventilatory responses in conscious mice before and after intraperitoneal administration of the specific TRPA1 antagonist HC-030031 in two doses of 50 and 200 (cumulative dose 250) mg kg(-1) . Ventilation and its responses to mild 13% and severe 7% hypoxia, pure O2 , and 5% CO2 in O2 were recorded in a whole-body plethysmograph. TRPA1 antagonism caused a dose-dependent attenuation of the HVR. Ventilatory stimulation was virtually abrogated in response to the mild, but it remained viable, albeit slashed, at severe hypoxia after the bigger dose of HC-030031. The TRPA1 function seemed specific for the hypoxic chemoreflex as neither the response to pure O2 nor hypercapnia was appreciably influenced by the TRPA1 antagonist. The study unravelled the role of TRPA1 in shaping the ventilatory response to low-intensity hypoxia, liable to be mediated by vagally innervated respiratory chemosensors of lower functional rank, but contradicted the TRPA1 being indispensable for the powerful carotid body chemoreflex in face of a severe hypoxic threat.


Development of behavioral and neural responses to Japanese lexical pitch accent and phonemic vowel length.

日本語音声獲得における行動反応と脳反応の発達的変化-ピッチアクセントと長短母音を中心に―

Studies on language acquisition in infants have recently used brain imaging methods, such as NIRS (near infrared spectroscopy) and EEG (electroencephalography) measurements, as well as classical behavioral methods. These studies have demonstrated developmental changes in neural and behavioral responses during speech processing. In this article, I review some studies on Japanese infants and address development of behavioral and brain responses to Japanese lexical pitch accent and phonemic vowel length underlying the change in speech perception abilities.

Journal of the Phonetic Society of Japan


Dialectal differences in hemispheric specialization for Japanese lexical pitch accent.

Language experience can alter perceptual abilities and the neural specialization for phonological contrasts. Here we investigated whether dialectal differences in the lexical use of pitch information lead to differences in functional lateralization for pitch processing. We measured cortical hemodynamic responses to pitch pattern changes in native speakers of Standard (Tokyo) Japanese, which has a lexical pitch accent system, and native speakers of 'accentless' dialects, which do not have any lexical tonal phenomena. While the Standard Japanese speakers showed left-dominant responses in temporal regions to pitch pattern changes within words, the accentless dialects speakers did not show such left-dominance. Pitch pattern changes within harmonic-complex tones also elicited different brain activation patterns between the two groups. These results indicate that the neural processing of pitch information differs depending on the listener's native dialect, and that listeners' linguistic experiences may further affect the processing of pitch changes even for non-linguistic sounds.


Development of single/geminate obstruent discrimination by Japanese infants: Early integration of durational and non-durational cues.

The Japanese language has single/geminate obstruents characterized by durational difference in closure/frication as part of the phonemic repertoire used to distinguish word meanings. We first evaluated infants' abilities to discriminate naturally uttered single/geminate obstruents (/pata/ and /patta/) using the visual habituation-dishabituation method. The results revealed that 9.5-month-old Japanese infants were able to make this discrimination, t(21) = 2.119, p = .046, paired t test, whereas 4-month-olds were not, t(25) = 0.395, p = .696, paired t test. To examine how acoustic correlates (covarying cues) are associated with the contrast discrimination, we tested Japanese infants at 9.5 and 11.5 months of age with 3 combinations of natural and manipulated stimuli. The 11.5-month-olds were able to discriminate the naturally uttered pair (/pata/ vs. /patta/), t(20) = 4.680, p < .000, paired t test. Neither group discriminated the natural /patta/ from the manipulated /pata/ created from natural /patta/ tokens: For 9.5-month-olds, t(23) = 0.754, p = .458; for 11.5-month-olds, t(27) = 0.789, p = .437, paired t tests. Only the 11.5-month-olds discriminated the natural /pata/ and the manipulated /patta/ created from /pata/ tokens: For 9.5-month-olds, t(24) = 0.114, p = .910; for 11.5-month-olds, t(23) = 2.244, p = .035, paired t tests. These results suggest that Japanese infants acquire a sensitivity to contrasts of single/geminate obstruents by 9.5 months of age and that certain cues that covary with closure length either facilitate or interfere with contrast discrimination under particular conditions.


Functional lateralization of speech processing in adults and children who stutter.


Optical brain imaging reveals general auditory and language-specific processing in early infant development.

This study uses near-infrared spectroscopy in young infants in order to elucidate the nature of functional cerebral processing for speech. Previous imaging studies of infants' speech perception revealed left-lateralized responses to native language. However, it is unclear if these activations were due to language per se rather than to some low-level acoustic correlate of spoken language. Here we compare native (L1) and non-native (L2) languages with 3 different nonspeech conditions including emotional voices, monkey calls, and phase scrambled sounds that provide more stringent controls. Hemodynamic responses to these stimuli were measured in the temporal areas of Japanese 4 month-olds. The results show clear left-lateralized responses to speech, prominently to L1, as opposed to various activation patterns in the nonspeech conditions. Furthermore, implementing a new analysis method designed for infants, we discovered a slower hemodynamic time course in awake infants. Our results are largely explained by signal-driven auditory processing. However, stronger activations to L1 than to L2 indicate a language-specific neural factor that modulates these responses. This study is the first to discover a significantly higher sensitivity to L1 in 4 month-olds and reveals a neural precursor of the functional specialization for the higher cognitive network.


Development of hemispheric specialization for lexical pitch-accent in Japanese infants.

Infants' speech perception abilities change through the first year of life, from broad sensitivity to a wide range of speech contrasts to becoming more finely attuned to their native language. What remains unclear, however, is how this perceptual change relates to brain responses to native language contrasts in terms of the functional specialization of the left and right hemispheres. Here, to elucidate the developmental changes in functional lateralization accompanying this perceptual change, we conducted two experiments on Japanese infants using Japanese lexical pitch-accent, which changes word meanings with the pitch pattern within words. In the first behavioral experiment, using visual habituation, we confirmed that infants at both 4 and 10 months have sensitivities to the lexical pitch-accent pattern change embedded in disyllabic words. In the second experiment, near-infrared spectroscopy was used to measure cortical hemodynamic responses in the left and right hemispheres to the same lexical pitch-accent pattern changes and their pure tone counterparts. We found that brain responses to the pitch change within words differed between 4- and 10-month-old infants in terms of functional lateralization: Left hemisphere dominance for the perception of the pitch change embedded in words was seen only in the 10-month-olds. These results suggest that the perceptual change in Japanese lexical pitch-accent may be related to a shift in functional lateralization from bilateral to left hemisphere dominance.


Discrimination of phonemic vowel length by Japanese infants.

Japanese has a vowel duration contrast as one component of its language-specific phonemic repertory to distinguish word meanings. It is not clear, however, how a sensitivity to vowel duration can develop in a linguistic context. In the present study, using the visual habituation-dishabituation method, the authors evaluated infants' abilities to discriminate Japanese long and short vowels embedded in two-syllable words (/mana/ vs. /ma:na/). The results revealed that 4-month-old Japanese infants (n = 32) failed to discriminate the contrast (p = .676), whereas 9.5-month-olds (n = 33) showed the discrimination ability (p = .014). The 7.5-month-olds did not show positive evidence to discriminate the contrast either when the edited stimuli were used (n = 33; p = .275) or when naturally uttered stimuli were used (n = 33; p = .189). By contrast, the 4-month-olds (n = 24) showed sensitivity to a vowel quality change (/mana/ vs. /mina/; p = .034). These results indicate that Japanese infants acquire sensitivity to long-short vowel contrasts between 7.5 and 9.5 months of age and that the developmental course of the phonemic category by the durational changes is different from that by the quality change.


Reaction time differences between left- and right-handers during mental rotation of hand pictures.


Brain responses in the processing of lexical pitch-accent by Japanese speakers.

Near-infrared spectroscopy was used to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of Japanese lexical pitch-accent by adult native speakers of Japanese. We measured cortical hemodynamic responses to a pitch pattern change (high-low vs. low-high) embedded in disyllabic words or pure tones. The results showed that the responses to the pitch pattern change within the words were larger than those for the pure tones in the left temporoparietal region. Activation in the left frontal region was also observed for the perception of pitch pattern change within the words. These results indicate that the left language-related regions contribute to the processing of lexical pitch-accent in native Japanese speakers.


吃音児の音声言語に対する左右聴覚野の優位性 -近赤外分光法脳オキシメータによる検討-

The Japan Journal of Logopedics and Phoniatrics


Different brain strategies underlie the categorical perception of foreign and native phonemes.

The present study using near-infrared spectroscopy examined the neuronal correlates of Japanese long/short vowel contrast discrimination and its relationship with behavioral performance by comparing native Japanese (L1) subjects and Korean subjects learning Japanese as a second language (L2). Phoneme-specific responses were predominantly observed in the left auditory area only in the L1 subjects, although the behavioral scores of the L2 subjects indicated categorical perception (CP) that was indistinguishable from that of the L1 subjects. These inconsistent relationships were more evident in the correlation coefficients between the brain recording and behavior. However, slower reaction times and non-specific brain responses in the L2 listeners suggest differences in their cortical processes from those of the L1 subjects. These findings suggest that the CP of L2 phonemes as determined by behavioral scores alone does not always predict a language-specific neural processing as employed by the L1 listeners.


成人人工内耳装用者における音韻と韻律の相互作用

成人人工内耳装用者における音韻と韻律の相互作用


吃音者の聴覚言語処理における左右聴覚野の優位性 -近赤外分光法脳オキシメータによる検討-


Differential cortical responses in second language learners to different vowel contrasts.

Near-infrared spectroscopy was used to measure hemodynamic responses in Korean subjects learning Japanese as a second-language to Japanese phonemic contrasts that are either phonologically distinctive or non-distinctive in their first-language. These results were compared with those of Japanese native listeners reported previously. Unlike the results observed in the Japanese subjects, the Korean subjects did not show category-specific neural responses to a durational contrast that is non-distinctive in their first-language. The /a-e/ contrast elicited the larger response in the left auditory area, consistent with the results of the Japanese. These phoneme-dependent responses imply that the neuronal networks subserving the first and second-languages are either shared or exclusive according to the mutual relationship between the phonemic properties of the first and second-languages.


乳幼児の音声言語処理における左右聴覚野の発達 -近赤外分光法による検討-

乳幼児の音声言語処理における左右聴覚野の発達 -近赤外分光法による検討-


Assessing cerebral representations of short and long vowel categories by NIRS.

The present study examined cerebral representations of Japanese long and short vowel categories with near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) by measuring the hemodynamic changes. Results showed that NIRS could capture phoneme-specific information. The left side of the auditory area showed large hemodynamic changes only for contrasting stimuli between which the phonemic boundary was estimated, but not for stimuli differing by an equal duration but belonging to the same phoneme category. Left dominance in phoneme processing was also confirmed for the across-category stimuli. These findings indicate that the Japanese vowel contrast based only on duration differences is dealt with in the same language-dominant hemisphere as other spectrally varying phonemic categories, and that the cortical activities related to its processing can be detected with NIRS.


吃音者の単語リーディング課題における時間遅延特性

吃音者の単語リーディング課題における時間遅延特性


対称性認知の3階層直列処理モデルによる要素パターンに対するバラバラ性の検討

対称性認知の3階層直列処理モデルによる要素パターンに対するバラバラ性の検討

Journal of Human Sciences and Arts, Faculty of Integrated Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokushima

徳島大学総合科学部人間科学研究


社交不安における注意解放の困難の検討―表情に着目して―

社交不安における注意解放の困難の検討―表情に着目して―


小学生における漢字の形態・音韻・意味処理に対する脳活動の発達的変化

小学生における漢字の形態・音韻・意味処理に対する脳活動の発達的変化


小学生の読みにおける音韻処理の発達的変化 -語彙判断・押韻判断処理における脳処理からの検討-

明治安田こころの健康財団 2016年度研究助成 論文集

明治安田こころの健康財団 2016年度研究助成 論文集


吃音者の発声におけるピッチ制御の聴覚フィードバック特性

吃音者の発声におけるピッチ制御の聴覚フィードバック特性

Research Bulletin, National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities

国立身体障害者リハビリテーションセンター研究紀要


発声の始めと持続中のピッチ制御特性

発声の始めと持続中のピッチ制御特性


聴覚によるF0制御の時間特性と吃音検査への応用の可能性

聴覚によるF0制御の時間特性と吃音検査への応用の可能性


遅延聴覚フィードバック(DAF)条件下での読みの眼球運動への影響

遅延聴覚フィードバック(DAF)条件下での読みの眼球運動への影響


吃音者の言語音声認知における大脳半球左右差

吃音者の言語音声認知における大脳半球左右差

東京学芸大学 紀要 第1部門 教育科学

東京学芸大学 紀要 第1部門 教育科学


音韻概念形成訓練による脳機能の変化

音韻概念形成訓練による脳機能の変化

東京学芸大学 紀要 第1部門 教育科学

東京学芸大学 紀要 第1部門 教育科学


胎児の学習機能と生後の言語発達との関連性

胎児の学習機能と生後の言語発達との関連性