Differences in temporal processing speeds between the right and left auditory cortex reflect the strength of recurrent synaptic connectivity.

Brain asymmetry in the sensitivity to spectrotemporal modulation is an established functional feature that underlies the perception of speech and music. The left auditory cortex (ACx) is believed to specialize in processing fast temporal components of speech sounds, and the right ACx slower components. However, the circuit features and neural computations behind these lateralized spectrotemporal processes are poorly understood.

Using Neural Circuit Interrogation in Rodents to Unravel Human Speech Decoding.

The neural circuits responsible for social communication are among the least understood in the brain. Human studies have made great progress in advancing our understanding of the global computations required for processing speech, and animal models offer the opportunity to discover evolutionarily conserved mechanisms for decoding these signals. In this review article, we describe some of the most well-established speech decoding computations from human studies and describe animal research designed to reveal potential circuit mechanisms underlying these processes.