Auditory–motor interactions in neural processing and the frequency-following response

ECR R21 – Project Summary The central auditory system modulates its responses to self-generated sounds that result from an individual’s movements. However, how the human auditory system balances two competing functions—coarse attenuation of self-generated sounds allowing us to remain vigilant to the external environment, and fine-grained accentuation of unexpected sounds to monitor for prediction errors—is not well-understood. We will use the frequency-following response (FFR)— which measures the fidelity of a sounds’ representation in the early auditory system—to assess the timing and location of auditory–motor interactions in the auditory system, whether subcortical or in primary auditory cortex. We will then uncover how early auditory processing of self-generated sounds is modulated when the auditory stimulus is unexpected and therefore does not align with sensory predictions. Separately, but in the same participants, we will use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify cortical neural processing of auditory–motor interactions when hearing both expected and unexpected stimuli during active and passive sound presentation. Finally, we will directly compare early auditory FFR representations and later auditory cortical fMRI representations to map the neural processing of self-generated and expected sounds. By assaying auditory perception across self- vs. passive generation and expected vs. unexpected contexts, as well as by synthesizing non-invasive methods for imaging early and later auditory processing, this project will uncover fundamental information about how the human brain processes self-generated and passively perceived sounds, and how that processing changes when the sounds are unexpected vs. expected. Project Number: 1R21DC022906-01 | Fiscal Year: 2025 | NIH Institute/Center: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) | Principal Investigator: Kevin Sitek | Institution: NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY AT CHICAGO, CHICAGO, IL | Award Amount: $600,000 | Activity Code: R21 | Study Section: Communication Disorders Review Committee[CDRC] View on NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/1R21DC02290601