Past events: Boris Alexander Kleber. Experience-dependent modulation of neural systems underlying vocal motor learning

What: Experience-dependent modulation of neural systems underlying vocal motor learning

Where: Zoom Room 1

Who: Boris Alexander Kleber, PhD, Dr. habil., Assistant Professor, Center for Music in the Brain, Department of Clinical Medicine- Aarhus University - Denmark.

When: Thursday,  August 27th at 12 PM.

Describing the neural processes that mediate human vocalizations is fundamental to our understanding of the mechanisms that underly language learning and vocal sensorimotor control. In the domain of speech research, this entails the interactions between perceptual and motor systems, which can be described within the theoretical framework of predictive coding, referring to the brain’s ability to construct a future state of the vocal system in order to generate motor commands from desired effects. These processes have so far been tested in speaking, yet singing provides an exciting model for understanding the effect of expertise in this perception-action loop in terms of minimization of prediction error. By developing fMRI paradigms of overt singing with expert- and non-singers, I aim to explain how vocal experience impacts upon the multimodal motor control of human vocalizations. Results from these studies indicate a crucial role of the insula in respiratory, laryngeal, and articulatory control, suggesting that singing experience enhances the integration of somatosensory information within the speech motor system, perhaps by strengthening salient associations of bodily signals associated with conscious and non-conscious aspects of expressive language production within a musical framework. The use of real-time acoustic perturbation paradigms furthermore allows for a more detailed differentiation of expertise-related effects on predictive coding mechanisms in a perception-action context at both the behavioral and neural levels.