Pairing Speech Sounds With Vagus Nerve Stimulation Drives Stimulus-specific Cortical Plasticity.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Individuals with communication disorders, such as aphasia, exhibit weak auditory cortex responses to speech sounds and language impairments. Previous studies have demonstrated that pairing vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) with tones or tone trains can enhance both the spectral and temporal processing of sounds in auditory cortex, and can be used to reverse pathological primary auditory cortex (A1) plasticity in a rodent model of chronic tinnitus.

Objective/hypothesis

We predicted that pairing VNS with speech sounds would strengthen the A1 response to the paired speech sounds.

Methods

The speech sounds 'rad' and 'lad' were paired with VNS three hundred times per day for twenty days. A1 responses to both paired and novel speech sounds were recorded 24 h after th

SUBMITTER: Engineer CT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4461522 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May-Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature