Functional Organization of the Superior Temporal Gyrus for Speech Perception

The basic mechanisms underlying comprehension of spoken language are still largely unknown. Over the past decade, the study team has gained new insights to how the human brain extracts the most fundamental linguistic elements (consonants and vowels) from a complex and highly variable acoustic signal. However, the next set of questions await pertaining to the sequencing of those auditory elements and how they are integrated with other features, such as, the amplitude envelope of speech. Further investigation of the cortical representation of speech sounds can likely shed light on these fundamental questions. Previous research has implicated the superior temporal cortex in the processing of speech sounds, but little is known about how these sounds are linked together into the perceptual experience of words and continuous speech. The overall goal is to determine how the brain extracts linguistic elements from a complex acoustic speech signal towards better understanding and remediating human language disorders.

Inclusion Criteria: * Participants with epilepsy or brain tumors at UCSF undergoing surgical electrode implantation for seizure localization or awake intraoperative brain mapping for resection of brain tumors or epilepsy and * Participants with electrodes implanted in at least two regions of interest who are willing and able to cooperate with study tasks. Exclusion Criteria: * Participants who lack capacity or decline to provide informed consent, * Participants who have significant cerebral lesions or * Participants with cognitive deficits that preclude reliable completion of study tasks.