Behavioral and Neural Characteristics of Adaptive Speech Motor Control

University of Washington

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Speech

Treatments: Behavioral: Visual feedback perturbation during reaching; Behavioral: Auditory feedback perturbation during speech; Other: DBS stimulation ON/OFF

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT06164717

R01DC014510 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

STUDY00001367

R01DC020707 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

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.

Enrollment: 507 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 4+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion 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)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Factorial Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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507 participants in 3 patient groups

Auditory feedback perturbation during speech

Experimental group

Description:

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, the study addresses basic experimental questions regarding the general role of auditory feedback in the central nervous system's control of articulatory speech movements.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Auditory feedback perturbation during speech

Visual feedback perturbation during reaching

Experimental group

Description:

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.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Visual feedback perturbation during reaching

Deep brain stimulation

Experimental group

Description:

This intervention consists of toggling the deep brain stimulation (DBS) implant ON/OFF prior to participation in the speech auditory-motor learning tasks and speech sequence learning tasks. This intervention can be implemented by the subject themselves as all patients have a hand- held controlled that they use to switch stimulation ON/OFF.

Treatment:

Other: DBS stimulation ON/OFF