RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 A core speech circuit between primary motor, somatosensory, and auditory cortex: evidence from connectivity and genetic descriptions
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 139550
DO 10.1101/139550
A1 Jeremy I. Skipper
A1 Uri Hasson
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/05/18/139550.abstract
AB What adaptations allow humans to produce and perceive speech so effortlessly? We show that speech is supported by a largely undocumented core of structural and functional connectivity between the central sulcus (CS or primary motor and somatosensory cortex) and the transverse temporal gyrus (TTG or primary auditory cortex). Anatomically, we show that CS and TTG cortical thickness covary across individuals and that they are connected by white matter tracts. Neuroimaging network analyses confirm the functional relevance and specificity of these structural relationships. Specifically, the CS and TTG are functionally connected at rest, during natural audiovisual speech perception, and are coactive over a large variety of linguistic stimuli and tasks. Importantly, across structural and functional analyses, connectivity of regions immediately adjacent to the TTG are with premotor and prefrontal regions rather than the CS. Finally, we show that this structural/functional CS-TTG relationship is mediated by a constellation of genes associated with vocal learning and disorders of efference copy. We propose that this core circuit constitutes an interface for rapidly exchanging articulatory and acoustic information and discuss implications for current models of speech.