bioRxiv Science⌕ Search
Home/Archive/bioRxiv

bioRxiv · 10.1101/2024.11.06.622262

Speech-in-noise perception across the lifespan: A comparative study in Mongolian gerbils and humans

Juchter, C.·Chi, C.-J.·Beutelmann, R.·Klump, G. M.
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Many elderly listeners have difficulties with speech-in-noise perception, even if auditory thresholds in quiet are normal. The mechanisms underlying this compromised speech perception with age are still not understood. For identifying the physiological causes of these age-related speech perception difficulties, an appropriate animal model is needed enabling the use of invasive methods. In a comparative behavioral study, we used young-adult and quiet-aged Mongolian gerbils as well as young and elderly human subjects to investigate the age-related changes in speech-in-noise perception evaluating whether gerbils are an appropriate animal model for the age-related decline in speech-in-noise processing of human listeners. Gerbils and human subjects had to report a deviant consonant-vowel-consonant combination (CVC) or vowel-consonant-vowel combination (VCV) in a sequence of CVC or VCV standards, respectively. The logatomes were spoken by different speakers and masked by a steady-state speech-shaped noise. Response latencies were measured to generate perceptual maps employing multidimensional scaling, visualizing the subjects internal representation of the sounds. By analyzing response latencies for different types of vowels and consonants, we investigated whether aging had similar effects on speech-in-noise perception in gerbils compared to humans. For evaluating peripheral auditory function, auditory brainstem responses and audiograms were measured in gerbils and human subjects, respectively. We found that the overall phoneme discriminability in gerbils was independent of age, whereas consonant discriminability was declined in humans with age. Response latencies were generally longer in aged than in young gerbils and humans, respectively. Response latency patterns for the discrimination of different vowel or consonant types were different between species, but both gerbils and humans made use of the same articulatory features for phoneme discrimination. The species-specific response latency patterns were mostly unaffected by age across vowel types, while there were differential aging effects on the species-specific response latency patterns of different consonant types.

Explore related subjects

neurosciencePreprint

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Juchter, C., Chi, C.-J., Beutelmann, R., Klump, G. M.. 2024-11-08. Speech-in-noise perception across the lifespan: A comparative study in Mongolian gerbils and humans. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.11.06.622262

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related preprints

bioRxiv2026

Attention Across Scales: From Individual Variation to Social Hierarchies and Brain Networks in Semi-Free-Ranging Macaques

Attention is a fundamental brain function supporting perception, decision-making, and social behavior, and its dysfunction profoundly impairs daily life. It is both dynamic and stable, varying across observations and individuals, changing across the lifespan, and being shaped by social and environmental experience. Yet capturing this complexity remains a central challenge in neuroscience. Here, we integrated longitudinal behavioral assessments of semi-free-ranging macaques living in naturalistic social groups with resting-state fMRI. We quantified performance across days, ages, and social hierarchies and related it to intrinsic brain organization. Distinct attentional phenotypes emerged, including individuals with reduced attentional control. Performance followed an inverted-U lifespan trajectory, improving from childhood to adulthood before declining. Social status modulated attentional performance. Critically, nonlinear lifespan trajectories and associations with individual attentional differences were most clearly expressed in frontoparietal connectivity. Together, these findings reveal how sustained attention is organized across scales, providing a biological framework for its individual diversity, social modulation, and neural basis.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

Decoding natural scenes from patterned optogenetic responses in mouse visual cortex

A central challenge in developing visual cortical prostheses is to determine how visual stimuli should be transformed into effective patterns of cortical stimulation. Although advances in stimulation technologies, including optogenetics, provide increasingly precise control over cortical activity, it remains unclear whether artificially evoked activity can reproduce the information content of naturally evoked visual representations. Here we establish a quantitative framework for evaluating visual encoding strategies by decoding cortical responses evoked by natural vision and patterned optogenetic stimulation. We developed a novel dual-modal paradigm in awake mice to bridge the gap between endogenous photostimulation and artificial network driving. By co-expressing the high-performance calcium indicator GCaMP6s and the red-shifted, ultra-sensitive opsin rsChRmine-oScarlet in the primary visual cortex (V1), we successfully translated dynamic natural movie frames into patterned, spatiotemporal optogenetic stimulation. Quantitative comparisons of macro-scale dynamics demonstrated that this patterned optogenetic injection evokes cortical states highly comparable and representationally aligned with those driven by actual visual photostimulation. To systematically evaluate the fidelity of these responses, we developed STAR, a deep learning model featuring spatial and temporal attention mechanisms, and successfully reconstructed the frames of natural movies from V1 signals under both experimental modalities. Collectively, our results demonstrate that complex sensory information can be both naturally encoded and synthetically injected into V1 circuits with high decoding fidelity. This work provides an empirical and computational proof-of-concept for intelligent, closed-loop biomimetic encoders, establishing a robust framework for next-generation cortical visual neuroprostheses and bidirectional brain-machine interfaces.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

Why Is Spontaneous Blink Timing Informative? An Adaptive Scheduling Perspective

Spontaneous eye blinks have long been linked to cognitive processing, yet how task demands shape blink timing and its relationship to behavioral performance remains unclear. We examined spontaneous blink behavior in 576 adults performing two variants of the Continuous Performance Task (CPT). Blink occurrence and timing were most strongly modulated by the experimental condition in the more demanding CPT-AX task, whereas their association with response time was stronger in the CPT-X task, where more consistent blink timing predicted faster responses. This dissociation suggests that task structure changes not only blink behavior but also the behavioral relevance of blink timing. These findings are consistent with an adaptive scheduling account of spontaneous blinking and provide a conceptual framework for understanding when and why blink timing contains chronometric information about ongoing cognition.

neuroscience↗