Newborn's neural representation of instrumental and vocal music as revealed by fMRI: A dynamic effective brain connectivity study.

Music is ubiquitous, both in its instrumental and vocal forms. While speech perception at birth has been at the core of an extensive corpus of research, the origins of the ability to discriminate instrumental or vocal melodies is still not well investigated. In previous studies comparing vocal and musical perception, the vocal stimuli were mainly related to speaking, including language, and not to the non-language singing voice. In the present study, to better compare a melodic instrumental line with the voice, we used singing as a comparison stimulus, to reduce the dissimilarities between the two stimuli as much as possible, separating language perception from vocal musical perception. In the present study, 45 newborns were scanned, 10 full-term born infants and 35 preterm infants at term-equivalent age (mean gestational age at test = 40.17 weeks, SD = 0.44) using functional magnetic resonance imaging while listening to five melodies played by a musical instrument (flute) or sung by a female voice. To examine the dynamic task-based effective connectivity, we employed a psychophysiological interaction of co-activation patterns (PPI-CAPs) analysis, using the auditory cortices as seed region, to investigate moment-to-moment changes in task-driven modulation of cortical activity during an fMRI task. Our findings reveal condition-specific, dynamically occurring patterns of co-activation (PPI-CAPs). During the vocal condition, the auditory cortex co-activates with the sensorimotor and salience networks, while during the instrumental condition, it co-activates with the visual cortex and the superior frontal cortex. Our results show that the vocal stimulus elicits sensorimotor aspects of the auditory perception and is processed as a more salient stimulus while the instrumental condition activated higher-order cognitive and visuo-spatial networks. Common neural signatures for both auditory stimuli were found in the precuneus and posterior cingulate gyrus. Finally, this study adds knowledge on the dynamic brain connectivity underlying the newborns capability of early and specialized auditory processing, highlighting the relevance of dynamic approaches to study brain function in newborn populations.

Social context and drug cues modulate inhibitory control in cocaine addiction: involvement of the STN evidenced through functional MRI.

Addictions often develop in a social context, although the influence of social factors did not receive much attention in the neuroscience of addiction. Recent animal studies suggest that peer presence can reduce cocaine intake, an influence potentially mediated, among others, by the subthalamic nucleus (STN). However, there is to date no neurobiological study investigating this mediation in humans. This study investigated the impact of social context and drug cues on brain correlates of inhibitory control in individuals with and without cocaine use disorder (CUD) using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Seventeen CUD participants and 17 healthy controls (HC) performed a novel fMRI "Social" Stop-Signal Task (SSST) in the presence or absence of an observer while being exposed to cocaine-related (vs. neutral) cues eliciting craving in drug users. The results showed that CUD participants, while slower at stopping with neutral cues, recovered control level stopping abilities with cocaine cues, while HC did not show any difference. During inhibition (Stop Correct vs Stop Incorrect), activity in the right STN, right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and bilateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) varied according to the type of cue. Notably, the presence of an observer reversed this effect in most areas for CUD participants. These findings highlight the impact of social context and drug cues on inhibitory control in CUD and the mediation of these effects by the right STN and bilateral OFC, emphasizing the importance of considering the social context in addiction research. They also comfort the STN as a potential addiction treatment target.

Maternal singing reduced pain indexes in 2-month-old infants and increased proximity during vaccinations.

AIM: Immunisation is a global health priority, but methods of non-pharmacological pain relief are not widely used in routine clinical practice. In this study, we set out to investigate the effects of maternal singing during the routine vaccination of infants. METHODS: We recruited 67 mother-infant pairs at Health Centres in the Aosta Region of Italy. Infants aged 2-4 months were randomly allocated to a singing intervention group or to a control group whose injections were administered following standard practice. Pre- and post-immunisation pain was blindly assessed using the Modified Behavioural Pain Scale, and mother-infant proximity indexes were assigned based on muted video-tracks. RESULTS: When assessed for pain, the infants in the maternal singing group were assigned significantly lower movement indexes (p = 0.032) and marginally significantly lower cry indexes (p = 0.076). A higher frequency of mother-to-infant gaze (p < 0.005) was observed in the singing group dyads. Finally, the intervention group mothers' self-perceived ease in singing was correlated with their previous singing experience and with lower anxiety following the vaccination procedure (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Maternal singing during immunisation procedures benefits both mothers and babies. The practice of singing is a biologically rooted and adaptive form of intuitive parental communication that should be encouraged, especially in at-risk populations.

Maternal singing sustains preterm hospitalized newborns' autonomic nervous system maturation: an RCT.

BACKGROUND: Premature birth is known to affect the newborn's autonomic nervous system (ANS) maturation, with potential short and long-term impact on their neurobehavioral development. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of maternal directed singing and speaking on the preterm infants' autonomic nervous system (ANS) maturation as measured by the heart rate variability (HRV) parameters. METHODS: In this multi-center randomized clinical trial, 30 stable preterm infants (m = 29,6 weeks of gestational age), without any abnormalities were randomized into an intervention (16) or a control group (14). HRV was measured weekly, for a total of 80 recordings during hospitalization, as well as before and after each session of singing or speaking. RESULTS: The intervention group showed a significant increase of the percentage value of HRV power in the high frequency range when compared to the control group (p = 0.044). More specifically, the maternal singing significantly increased the high frequency power and decreased the low/high frequency power ratio (p = 0.037). CONCLUSIONS: The preterm infant's vagal activity significantly increased in the intervention group, potentially enhancing their ANS maturation. The effect is specifically evidenced in the singing condition. IMPACT: Maternal singing affects the autonomic nervous system maturation of preterm hospitalized newborns in the NICU. No previous studies investigated how early vocal parental intervention can affect preterm infants developement, throught their autonomic nervous system maturation. Early Vocal Contact as an early intervention involving parents has a positive impact on preterm infant's development and it can be easily implemented in the care of preterm infants. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT04759573, retrospectively registered, 17 February 2021.

Frontal mechanisms underlying primate calls recognition by humans.

Introduction: The ability to process verbal language seems unique to humans and relies not only on semantics but on other forms of communication such as affective vocalizations, that we share with other primate species-particularly great apes (Hominidae). Methods: To better understand these processes at the behavioral and brain level, we asked human participants to categorize vocalizations of four primate species including human, great apes (chimpanzee and bonobo), and monkey (rhesus macaque) during MRI acquisition. Results: Classification was above chance level for all species but bonobo vocalizations. Imaging analyses were computed using a participant-specific, trial-by-trial fitted probability categorization value in a model-based style of data analysis. Model-based analyses revealed the implication of the bilateral orbitofrontal cortex and inferior frontal gyrus pars triangularis (IFGtri) respectively correlating and anti-correlating with the fitted probability of accurate species classification. Further conjunction analyses revealed enhanced activity in a sub-area of the left IFGtri specifically for the accurate classification of chimpanzee calls compared to human voices. Discussion: Our data-that are controlled for acoustic variability between species-therefore reveal distinct frontal mechanisms that shed light on how the human brain evolved to process vocal signals.

Preterm infants show an atypical processing of the mother's voice.

To understand the consequences of prematurity on language perception, it is fundamental to determine how atypical early sensory experience affects brain development. At term equivalent age, ten preterm and ten full-term newborns underwent high-density EEG during mother or stranger speech presentation, in the forward or backward order. A general group effect terms > preterms is evident in the theta frequency band, in the left temporal area, with preterms showing significant activation for strangers' and terms for the mother's voice. A significant group contrast in the low and high theta in the right temporal regions indicates higher activations for the stranger's voice in preterms. Finally, only full terms presented a late gamma band increase for the maternal voice, indicating a more mature brain response. EEG time-frequency analysis demonstrate that preterm infants are selectively responsive to stranger voices in both temporal hemispheres, and that they lack selective brain responses to their mother's forward voice.

Recent advances in copper chalcogenides for CO2 electroreduction.

Transforming CO2 through electrochemical methods into useful chemicals and energy sources may contribute to solutions for global energy and ecological challenges. Copper chalcogenides exhibit unique properties that make them potential catalysts for CO2 electroreduction. In this review, we provide an overview and comment on the latest advances made in the synthesis, characterization, and performance of copper chalcogenide materials for CO2 electroreduction, focusing on the work of the last five years. Strategies to boost their performance can be classified in three groups: (1) structural and compositional tuning, (2) leveraging on heterostructures and hybrid materials, and (3) optimizing size and morphology. Despite overall progress, concerns about selectivity and stability persist and require further investigation. This review outlines future directions for developing the next-generation of copper chalcogenide materials, emphasizing on rational design and advanced characterization techniques for efficient and selective CO2 electroreduction.

Co3-xFexO4 inverse opals with tunable catalytic activity for high-performance overall water splitting.

The development of earth-abundant and high-performance bifunctional catalysts for both the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline electrolytes is required to efficiently produce hydrogen by electrochemical water splitting, but remains a challenge. We have fabricated mesoporous cobalt iron oxide inverse opals (m-CFO IO) with different mole ratios of cobalt and iron by a wet chemical method using polystyrene beads as a hard template, followed by calcination in air. The performance of the m-CFO IO as OER and HER electrocatalysts was investigated. The as-prepared catalyst with equal concentrations of Fe and Co exhibits remarkable OER and HER performances with low overpotentials of 261 and 157 mV to attain 10 mA cm-2 and small Tafel slopes of 63 and 56 mV dec-1, respectively. An alkaline water electrolyzer with a two-electrode configuration achieves 10 mA cm-2 at 1.55 V with excellent long-term stability, outperforming the combination of noble metal IrO2 and Pt/C benchmark catalysts. The superior catalytic performance is ascribed to the synergistic effects of particle size, crystallinity, oxygen efficiency, a large number of active sites, and the large specific surface area of the porous inverse opal structure.

Gas phase deposition of well-defined bimetallic gold-silver clusters for photocatalytic applications.

Cluster beam deposition is employed for fabricating well-defined bimetallic plasmonic photocatalysts to enhance their activity while facilitating a more fundamental understanding of their properties. AuxAg1-x clusters with compositions (x = 0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 0.9 and 1) spanning the metals' miscibility range were produced in the gas-phase and soft-landed on TiO2 P25-coated silicon wafers with an optimal coverage of 4 atomic monolayer equivalents. Electron microscopy images show that at this coverage most clusters remain well dispersed whereas EXAFS data are in agreement with the finding that the deposited clusters have an average size of ca. 5 nm and feature the same composition as the ablated alloy targets. A composition-dependant electron transfer from Au to Ag that is likely to impart chemical stability to the bimetallic clusters and protect Ag atoms against oxidation is additionally evidenced by XPS and XANES. Under simulated solar light, AuxAg1-x clusters show a remarkable composition-dependent volcano-type enhancement of their photocatalytic activity towards degradation of stearic acid, a model compound for organic fouling on surfaces. The Formal Quantum Efficiency (FQE) is peaking at the Au0.3Ag0.7 composition with a value that is twice as high as that of the pristine TiO2 P25 under solar simulator. Under UV the FQE of all compositions remains similar to that of pristine TiO2. A classical electromagnetic simulation study confirms that among all compositions Au0.3Ag0.7 features the largest near-field enhancement in the wavelength range of maximal solar light intensity, as well as sufficient individual photon energy resulting in a better photocatalytic self-cleaning activity. This allows ascribing the mechanism for photocatalysis mostly to the plasmonic effect of the bimetallic clusters through direct electron injection and near-field enhancement from the resonant cluster towards the conduction band of TiO2. These results not only demonstrate the added value of using well-defined bimetallic nanocatalysts to enhance their photocatalytic activity but also highlights the potential of the cluster beam deposition to design tailored noble metal modified photocatalytic surfaces with controlled compositions and sizes without involving potentially hazardous chemical agents.

Dysfunctional cerebello-cerebral network associated with vocal emotion recognition impairments.

Vocal emotion recognition, a key determinant to analyzing a speaker's emotional state, is known to be impaired following cerebellar dysfunctions. Nevertheless, its possible functional integration in the large-scale brain network subtending emotional prosody recognition has yet to be explored. We administered an emotional prosody recognition task to patients with right versus left-hemispheric cerebellar lesions and a group of matched controls. We explored the lesional correlates of vocal emotion recognition in patients through a network-based analysis by combining a neuropsychological approach for lesion mapping with normative brain connectome data. Results revealed impaired recognition among patients for neutral or negative prosody, with poorer sadness recognition performances by patients with right cerebellar lesion. Network-based lesion-symptom mapping revealed that sadness recognition performances were linked to a network connecting the cerebellum with left frontal, temporal, and parietal cortices. Moreover, when focusing solely on a subgroup of patients with right cerebellar damage, sadness recognition performances were associated with a more restricted network connecting the cerebellum to the left parietal lobe. As the left hemisphere is known to be crucial for the processing of short segmental information, these results suggest that a corticocerebellar network operates on a fine temporal scale during vocal emotion decoding.

Oxytocin Levels Increase and Anxiety Decreases in Mothers Who Sing and Talk to Their Premature Infants during a Painful Procedure.

(1) Background: Preterm infants spend their first weeks of life in the hospital partially separated from their parents and subjected to frequent potentially painful clinical procedures. Previous research has found that early vocal contact reduces infant pain perception while simultaneously increasing oxytocin (OXT) levels. The current study aims to assess the effect of maternal singing and speaking on mothers. (2) Methods: During a painful procedure over two days, twenty preterm infants were randomly exposed to their mother's live voice (speaking or singing). Maternal OXT levels were measured twice: before and after singing, as well as before and after speaking. The anxiety and resilience responses of mothers were studied before and after the two-day interventions, regardless of the speaking/singing condition. OXT levels in mothers increased in response to both singing and speech. Concurrently, anxiety levels decreased, but no significant effects on maternal resilience were found. (3) Conclusions: OXT could be identified as a key mechanism for anxiety regulation in parents, even in sensitive care situations, such as when their infant is in pain. Active involvement of parents in the care of their preterm infants can have a positive effect on their anxiety as well as potential benefits to their sensitivity and care abilities through OXT.

Cerebral Activity in Female Baboons (Papio anubis) During the Perception of Conspecific and Heterospecific Agonistic Vocalizations: a Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy Study.

The "voice areas" in the superior temporal cortex have been identified in both humans and non-human primates as selective to conspecific vocalizations only (i.e., expressed by members of our own species), suggesting its old evolutionary roots across the primate lineage. With respect to non-human primate species, it remains unclear whether the listening of vocal emotions from conspecifics leads to similar or different cerebral activations when compared to heterospecific calls (i.e., expressed by another primate species) triggered by the same emotion. Using a neuroimaging technique rarely employed in monkeys so far, functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy, the present study investigated in three lightly anesthetized female baboons (Papio anubis), temporal cortex activities during exposure to agonistic vocalizations from conspecifics and from other primates (chimpanzees-Pan troglodytes), and energy matched white noises in order to control for this low-level acoustic feature. Permutation test analyses on the extracted OxyHemoglobin signal revealed great inter-individual differences on how conspecific and heterospecific vocal stimuli were processed in baboon brains with a cortical response recorded either in the right or the left temporal cortex. No difference was found between emotional vocalizations and their energy-matched white noises. Despite the phylogenetic gap between Homo sapiens and African monkeys, modern humans and baboons both showed a highly heterogeneous brain process for the perception of vocal and emotional stimuli. The results of this study do not exclude that old evolutionary mechanisms for vocal emotional processing may be shared and inherited from our common ancestor. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-022-00164-z.

Influence of bodily resonances on emotional prosody perception.

Introduction: Emotional prosody is defined as suprasegmental and segmental changes in the human voice and related acoustic parameters that can inform the listener about the emotional state of the speaker. While the processing of emotional prosody is well represented in the literature, the mechanism of embodied cognition in emotional voice perception is very little studied. This study aimed to investigate the influence of induced bodily vibrations-through a vibrator placed close to the vocal cords-in the perception of emotional vocalizations. The main hypothesis was that induced body vibrations would constitute a potential interoceptive feedback that can influence the auditory perception of emotions. It was also expected that these effects would be greater for stimuli that are more ambiguous. Methods: Participants were presented with emotional vocalizations expressing joy or anger which varied from low-intensity vocalizations, considered as ambiguous, to high-intensity ones, considered as non-ambiguous. Vibrations were induced simultaneously in half of the trials and expressed joy or anger congruently with the voice stimuli. Participants had to evaluate each voice stimulus using four visual analog scales (joy, anger, and surprise, sadness as control scales). Results: A significant effect of the vibrations was observed on the three behavioral indexes-discrimination, confusion and accuracy-with vibrations confusing rather than facilitating vocal emotion processing. Conclusion: Over all, this study brings new light on a poorly documented topic, namely the potential use of vocal cords vibrations as an interoceptive feedback allowing humans to modulate voice production and perception during social interactions.

Behavioral correlates of temporal attention biases during emotional prosody perception.

Emotional prosody perception (EPP) unfolds in time given the intrinsic temporal nature of auditory stimuli, and has been shown to be modulated by spatial attention. Yet, the influence of temporal attention (TA) on EPP remains largely unexplored. TA studies manipulate subject's motor preparedness according to an upcoming event, with targets to discriminate during short attended trials arriving quickly, and, targets to discriminate during long unattended trials arriving at a later time point. We used here a classic paradigm manipulating TA to investigate its influence on behavioral responses to EPP (n = 100) and we found that TA bias was associated with slower reaction times (RT) for angry but not neutral prosodies and only during short trials. Importantly, TA biases were observed for accuracy measures only for angry voices and especially during short trials, suggesting that neutral stimuli are less subject to TA biases. Importantly, emotional facilitation, with faster RTs for angry voices in comparison to neutral voices, was observed when the stimuli were temporally attended and during short trials, suggesting an influential role of TA during EPP. Together, these results demonstrate for the first time the major influence of TA in RTs and behavioral performance while discriminating emotional prosody.

Set the tone: Trustworthy and dominant novel voices classification using explicit judgement and machine learning techniques.

Prior research has established that valence-trustworthiness and power-dominance are the two main dimensions of voice evaluation at zero-acquaintance. These impressions shape many of our interactions and high-impact decisions, so it is crucial for many domains to understand this dynamic. Yet, the relationship between acoustical properties of novel voices and personality/attitudinal traits attributions remains poorly understood. The fundamental problem of understanding vocal impressions and relative decision-making is linked to the complex nature of the acoustical properties in voices. In order to disentangle this relationship, this study extends the line of research on the acoustical bases of vocal impressions in two ways. First, by attempting to replicate previous finding on the bi-dimensional nature of first impressions: using personality judgements and establishing a correspondence between acoustics and voice-first-impression (VFI) dimensions relative to sex (Study 1). Second (Study 2), by exploring the non-linear relationships between acoustical parameters and VFI by the means of machine learning models. In accordance with literature, a bi-dimensional projection comprising valence-trustworthiness and power-dominance evaluations is found to explain 80% of the VFI. In study 1, brighter (high center of gravity), smoother (low shimmers), and louder (high minimum intensity) voices reflected trustworthiness, while vocal roughness (harmonic to noise-ratio), energy in the high frequencies (Energy3250), pitch (Quantile 1, Quantile 5) and lower range of pitch values reflected dominance. In study 2, above chance classification of vocal profiles was achieved by both Support Vector Machine (77.78%) and Random-Forest (Out-Of-Bag = 36.14) classifiers, generally confirming that machine learning algorithms could predict first impressions from voices. Hence results support a bi-dimensional structure to VFI, emphasize the usefulness of machine learning techniques in understanding vocal impressions, and shed light on the influence of sex on VFI formation.

Crossed functional specialization between the basal ganglia and cerebellum during vocal emotion decoding: Insights from stroke and Parkinson's disease.

There is growing evidence that both the basal ganglia and the cerebellum play functional roles in emotion processing, either directly or indirectly, through their connections with cortical and subcortical structures. However, the lateralization of this complex processing in emotion recognition remains unclear. To address this issue, we investigated emotional prosody recognition in individuals with Parkinson's disease (model of basal ganglia dysfunction) or cerebellar stroke patients, as well as in matched healthy controls (n = 24 in each group). We analysed performances according to the lateralization of the predominant brain degeneration/lesion. Results showed that a right (basal ganglia and cerebellar) hemispheric dysfunction was likely to induce greater deficits than a left one. Moreover, deficits following left hemispheric dysfunction were only observed in cerebellar stroke patients, and these deficits resembled those observed after degeneration of the right basal ganglia. Additional analyses taking disease duration / time since stroke into consideration revealed a worsening of performances in patients with predominantly right-sided lesions over time. These results point to the differential, but complementary, involvement of the cerebellum and basal ganglia in emotional prosody decoding, with a probable hemispheric specialization according to the level of cognitive integration.