Temporal plasticity in auditory cortex improves neural discrimination of speech sounds.

Background: Many individuals with language learning impairments exhibit temporal processing deficits and degraded neural responses to speech sounds. Auditory training can improve both the neural and behavioral deficits, though significant deficits remain. Recent evidence suggests that vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) paired with rehabilitative therapies enhances both cortical plasticity and recovery of normal function.

Objective/hypothesis: We predicted that pairing VNS with rapid tone trains would enhance the primary auditory cortex (A1) response to unpaired novel speech sounds.

Methods: VNS was paired with tone trains 300 times per day for 20 days in adult rats. Responses to isolated speech sounds, compressed speech sounds, word sequences, and compressed word sequences were recorded in A1 following the completion of VNS-tone train pairing.

Results: Pairing VNS with rapid tone trains resulted in stronger, faster, and more discriminable A1 responses to speech sounds presented at conversational rates.

Conclusion: This study extends previous findings by documenting that VNS paired with rapid tone trains altered the neural response to novel unpaired speech sounds. Future studies are necessary to determine whether pairing VNS with appropriate auditory stimuli could potentially be used to improve both neural responses to speech sounds and speech perception in individuals with receptive language disorders.