Mental Health

Scientists Uncover How Brain Transforms Sounds Into Language

By Kamal Nayan | Update Date: Jan 31, 2014 09:01 AM EST

Scientists have gathered some promising clues that can enable us in developing a better understanding of the complex process of how brain interprets human voices and eventually transforms them into language. 

The study involves studying of the brain of patients with epilepsy undergoing testing to help stop their seizures.

It is a known fact that a part of brain called Wernicke's area - located in the region called the superior temporal gyrus - played an important role in processing language. However, it was unclear how that took place as scientists lacked the tools to study in real time how brain responded to split-second sounds. 

The group of researchers including linguistics from UC Berkeley, observed that patients when listened to random sentences, their brains sorted sounds based on a clear criteria in real time. 

"When we hear sounds or language, our brain is actually organizing this information through very particular filters-neurons that are detecting certain sounds," said Dr. Edward Chang, a UCSF neurosurgeon and lead scientist of the brain research in the press release. "The cool thing about it is you see this real clear heterogeneity in how those neurons correspond to speech. There's definitely an organization to it."

According to researchers, the brain, immediately filtered language sounds into broad groupings that included small neighborhoods of the neurons activating at certain sounds. 

"Of course there have been tons of studies in the past, but the tools were not sophisticated and not precise," said Dr. Josef Parvizi, a Stanford neurologist who has done similar work on patients with epilepsy, according to The Spec. "With this type of direct recording from the human brain, what Eddie (Chang)'s group is finding is remarkable."

Researchers believed that findings could someday contribute in developing a better understanding the language disorders and ultimately helping with problems like dyslexia. 

"Our hope is that with this more complete knowledge of the building blocks and fundamental aspects of language, we can meaningfully think about how learning occurs," Chang added. "We can maybe even explain why some of this goes awry."

The report is published in the Jan. 30 edition of Science Express

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