Why it matters
We are performing a research study to understand how the brain's response to speech and language changes as
children grow. We are looking for children ages 4 and up who
are undergoing surgical treatment for intractable epilepsy.
We are so grateful for your participation! With your support, we can learn about how the brain works and how we communicate!
Our study will determine how the developing brain is able to segment and classify continuous speech sounds in different contexts. Understanding such processes is crucial to understanding typical and atypical brain development, and could lead to better treatments of language disorders, delayed language learning, dyslexia, apraxia of speech, and aphasia.
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Help us identify the role of the brain in understanding speech!
Your child's healthcare team will be using a technique called stereo-electroencephalography (or sEEG for short) to monitor the locations of your child's seizures. Since your child is already undergoing clinical evaluation for seizures, we can investigate the brain's response to speech and natural sounds in different contexts--using the sEEG technique your physicians will already be using! We're doing so because we want to investigate a specific area called the posterior superior temporal gyrus (PSTG), which includes Wernicke’s area, an area of the brain that helps us understand speech.
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This area's important! The PSTG detects when sentences or phrases start, and is instrumental in understanding language. However, relatively little is known about how the PSTG circuit changes throughout our lives. We want to understand how neural responses in this area of our brain develop from childhood through adolescence.
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By doing so, we can answer important questions! Questions like: can the speed at which the PSTG detects sound be linked to improvements in behavioral performance later on in childhood? Can a brain-computer interface initiate speech by detecting a signal in the PSTG? By studying speech signals in children and adolescents, can make brain-computer interfaces more appropriate for a greater number of people?
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Still, the superior temporal gyrus is not the only area that is important for speech. There are other areas important for controlling how our mouths move when we speak, areas that respond when we hear the emotion in someone's voice, and areas that help us plan our movements. With your participation, we hope to understand how all of these brain areas work together to help us communicate.