Presentation
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The Role of the Basal Ganglia in Loudness Processing
Poster D73 in Poster Session D, Wednesday, October 25, 4:45 - 6:30 pm CEST, Espace Vieux-Port
Tena Grahovac1, Fabian Klostermann1,2; 1Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Clinic for Neurology, Motor and Cognition Group, 2Berlin School of Mind and Brain
INTRODUCTION: The basal ganglia are mostly associated with motor processing. Recently, however, the interest in their potential non-motor functions has increased, e.g., in the context of Parkinson's disease (PD), a neurodegenerative disorder primarily affecting the basal ganglia and leading to motor and non-motor impairments. For example, persons with PD both show reduced speech volume [1, 2] and aberrant volume perception of self- and externally generated speech [3, 4], in that comparably low signals (65 to 70 dB) are perceived as louder, and relatively loud signals (75 to 80 dB) as lower than normal [3, 4]. We therefore sought to investigate potential roles of the basal ganglia in the processing of loudness. METHODS: We analyzed the relationship between presented loudness levels of a continuous stimulus combining speech and natural background noises, and the blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal in eight specific basal ganglia regions depicted from the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) of 63 healthy adults (32 f / 31 m, mean age 43.4 yrs, ranging from 18 to 78 yrs; Erb et al., 2020). A general linear model analysis (GLM) was performed, calculating multiple linear regressions bilaterally for the following eight regions of interest: the putamen, caudate nucleus, nucleus accumbens, internal and external globus pallidus, substantia nigra pars reticulata and pars compacta, and subthalamic nucleus. RESULTS: Positive linear regressions were found in two voxel clusters, one each situated in the right and left putamen, overlapping with a small portion of the adjacent external globus pallidus (sizeR = 303 voxels; pR < .001; ZR = 5.09; sizeL = 386 voxels; pL < .001; ZL = 5.63). Further, negative linear regression patterns were identified in two voxel clusters in the head of the caudate nucleus, one each located in each hemisphere (sizeR = 205 voxels; pR < .004; ZR = 6.00; sizeL = 140 voxels; pL < .006; ZL = 5.90). CONCLUSION: The recruitment of activities in putaminal and external pallidal regions went in parallel with the volume increase of the continuous auditory stimulus. The opposite pattern was found in anterior caudate regions, of which the activity levels scaled with acoustic signal loudness inversely. The data suggest a complex role of the basal ganglia in loudness processing.
Topic Areas: Speech Perception,