EFFECTS OF AGING ON MIDBRAIN AND CORTICAL SPEECH-IN-NOISE PROCESSING

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dc.contributor.advisorAndreson, Samiraen_US
dc.contributor.advisorSimon, Jonathan Z.en_US
dc.contributor.authorPresacco, Alessandroen_US
dc.contributor.departmentNeuroscience and Cognitive Scienceen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2016-09-03T05:34:05Z
dc.date.available2016-09-03T05:34:05Z
dc.date.issued2016en_US
dc.description.abstractOlder adults frequently report that they can hear what they have been told but cannot understand the meaning. This is particularly true in noisy conditions, where the additional challenge of suppressing irrelevant noise (i.e. a competing talker) adds another layer of difficulty to their speech understanding. Hearing aids improve speech perception in quiet, but their success in noisy environments has been modest, suggesting that peripheral hearing loss may not be the only factor in the older adult’s perceptual difficulties. Recent animal studies have shown that auditory synapses and cells undergo significant age-related changes that could impact the integrity of temporal processing in the central auditory system. Psychoacoustic studies carried out in humans have also shown that hearing loss can explain the decline in older adults’ performance in quiet compared to younger adults, but these psychoacoustic measurements are not accurate in describing auditory deficits in noisy conditions. These results would suggest that temporal auditory processing deficits could play an important role in explaining the reduced ability of older adults to process speech in noisy environments. The goals of this dissertation were to understand how age affects neural auditory mechanisms and at which level in the auditory system these changes are particularly relevant for explaining speech-in-noise problems. Specifically, we used non-invasive neuroimaging techniques to tap into the midbrain and the cortex in order to analyze how auditory stimuli are processed in younger (our standard) and older adults. We will also attempt to investigate a possible interaction between processing carried out in the midbrain and cortex.en_US
dc.identifierhttps://doi.org/10.13016/M26B80
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/18542
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledNeurosciencesen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledAgingen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledCortexen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledEEGen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledMEGen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledMidbrainen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledSpeech in noiseen_US
dc.titleEFFECTS OF AGING ON MIDBRAIN AND CORTICAL SPEECH-IN-NOISE PROCESSINGen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

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