Behavioral and Neural Characteristics of Adaptive Speech Motor Control
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Auditory feedback perturbation during speech, Visual feedback perturbation during reaching, DBS stimulation ON/OFF.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Speech. Basic parameters: from 4 years · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- United States
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
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Overview
This study meets the NIH definition of a clinical trial, but is not a treatment study. Instead, the goal of this study is to investigate how hearing ourselves speak affects the planning and execution of speech movements. The study investigates this topic in both typical speakers and in patients with Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) implants. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Does the way we hear our own speech while talking affect future speech movements? * Can the speech of DBS patients reveal which brain areas are involved in adjusting speech movements? Participants will read words, sentences, or series of random syllables from a computer monitor while their speech is being recorded. For some participants, an electrode cap is also used to record brain activity during these tasks. And for DBS patients, the tasks will be performed with the stimulator ON and with the stimulator OFF.
Interventions
- Behavioral Auditory feedback perturbation during speech
The intervention consists of manipulating real-time auditory feedback during speech production. In our lab, such feedback perturbations can be implemented with either a stand-alone digital vocal processor (a device commonly used by singers and the music industry) or with software-based signal processing routines (see Equipment section for details). Note that the study does not investigate the efficacy of these hardware or software methods to induce behavioral change in subjects' speech. Rather, - Behavioral Visual feedback perturbation during reaching
The intervention consists of manipulating real-time visual feedback during upper limb reaching movements. In our lab, such feedback perturbations can be implemented with a virtual reality display system. - Other DBS stimulation ON/OFF
Patients who have been previously implanted with a DBS stimulator for their clinical care will be tested in two speech motor learning tasks with the stimulation ON and with the stimulation OFF. Note that (1) patients routinely turn the stimulation OFF and back ON (examples are, for some patients, to sleep, to save battery, etc), and (2) we are not in any way evaluating the stimulator itself or its clinical effectiveness but only whether or not two forms of speech motor learning (adaptation to a
Primary outcome measures
- Speech formant frequencies [Time frame: Measurements will be made only from acoustic recordings made during the test session (~1 hour).]
- Reach direction for arm movements [Time frame: Outcome measures will be made only during a single data recording session (~2 hours).]
- Amplitude of long-latency auditory evoked potentials (from EEG recordings) responses [Time frame: Measurements will be made only from electroencephalography (EEG) recordings made during the test session (~2 hours).]
- Local field potentials recorded by neural implants [Time frame: Measurements will be made only from DBS implant recordings made during the test session (~1-2 hours).]
- Temporal measures of speech syllable sequence learning [Time frame: Outcome measures will be made only during a single data recording session (~0.5 hours)]
- Accuracy during speech syllable sequence learning [Time frame: Outcome measures will be made only during a single data recording session (~0.5 hours)]
Eligibility criteria
General inclusion criteria:
- native speaker of American English
- no communication or neurological problems (except for subjects in the DBS group)
- 250-4000 Hz pure tone hearing thresholds equal to or better than 25 dB HL for children and young adults and equal to or better than 35 dB HL for older adults
- no medications that affect sensorimotor functioning (except for in the DBS group)
- adult subjects: 18 years of age or older
- typical children: 4;0 to 6;11 \[years;months\] or 10;0 to 12;11 \[years;months\])
Specific inclusion criteria for children:
\* scoring above the 20th percentile on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-5), Expressive Vocabulary Test (EVT-3), Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation (GFTA-3), and either Test of Early Language Development (TELD-4) or (for children age 8 or older) Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF-5).
Specific inclusion criteria for DBS patients:
\* bilateral electrodes implanted in either the ventral intermediate nucleus of the thalamus (Vim; a target site for patients with essential tremor) or subthalamic nucleus (STN; a target site for patients with Parkinson's disease)
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: Yes
Study design
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Model
- Factorial
- Masking
- Open label
- Primary purpose
- Basic science
Study locations
United States · 1 center
- University of Washington — Seattle
Identifiers
NCT: NCT06164717 · STUDY00001367 · R01DC020707 · R01DC014510