University of Helsinki

Research at CBRU

The main research topics at CBRU are

1. Speech perception, disorders, and plasticity
2. Music cognition and its educational and clinical applications
3. Early development of auditory cognition
4. Auditory processing in the ageing brain: deterioration and plasticity

Speech perception, disorders, and plasticity

Speech sound representations and their plasticity in language learning is one of the core areas in our research. We have shown that language-specific memory traces, predominant in the left temporal lobe, operate in an automatic fashion (Näätänen et al., Nature, 1997).

We also address the neural basis of auditory and audiovisual processing underlying reading and reading impairments. Furthermore, we aim to shed light to the impaired neural processing stages of speech and auditory information in dyslexia, autism spectrum, and other language and learning deficits. Our work has indicated that with appropriate intervention programs, dyslexia and language impairments can be alleviated and their neural basis altered (Kujala et al., PNAS, 2001; Pihko et al., Cer. Cor., 2007, Kujala & Näätänen, Progr. Neurobiol., 2010).

Music cognition and its educational and clinical applications

During past years, the research in the Brain and Music team has shown that music sounds are processed in the auditory cortex as any other sound but partially by spatially distinct neural networks (Tervaniemi et al., J. Neurosci., 2006). In professional and amateur musicians, these neural networks can represent musically relevant sound information with higher accuracy than in non-musicians (van Zuijen et al., J. Cogn. Neurosci., 2004; Tervaniemi et al., NeuroReport 2006).  Importantly, however, also non-musicians can extract highly complex musical information even when they concentrate on a parallel task outside auditory modality during the brain recordings (Brattico et al., Brain Res., 2006; Leino et al., Brain Res., 2007).

Early development of auditory cognition

The research on the developmental aspects of audition, memory, and attention is primarily based on event-related potentials and magnetic fields from children, infants, and fetuses. Our studies show that the fetal brain is capable of disentangling sounds with different pitches (Huotilainen et al., NeuroReport, 2004) and that the neonatal brain has high-level cognitive skills related to sound perception (Winkler et al., PNAS, 2003; Kushnerenko et al., Eur. J. Neurosci., 2007; Sambeth et al., Clin. Neurophys., 2008).

In children, the development of skills related to understanding speech and music is of great interest due to the benefits of early detection of possible impairments of hearing abilities. Our current projects aim at understanding the normal development of these abilities.

Auditory processing in the ageing brain: deterioration and plasticity

With ageing, speech perception especially in background noise becomes increasingly difficult even without major alteration in pure-tone audiogram. Our goal is to understand the age-related deterioration in the central auditory system and its impact on auditory processing in everyday life. To this aim, we develop and test objective (attention-independent) electrophysiological indices for the different aspects of central-auditory processing such as discrimination and identification of complex auditory signals, and the duration and capacity of auditory sensory memory. One promising index is the mismatch negativity (MMN; Näätänen & Winkler, Psychol. Bull., 1999; Näätänen, et al. TINS, 2001, Näätänen et al., Brain, 2011 in press). Furthermore, by using these very same indices, we explore the effectiveness of different types of training and practice program, in an attempt at alleviating or cancelling some of the age-related deterioration.

The neural basis of auditory processing and its plasticity

Besides these central research areas, we also investigate the neural basis and plasticity of auditory processing, for instance, phenomena such as auditory memory and primitive intelligence (Näätänen et al., TINS, 2001, Kujala & Näätänen, Progr. Neurobiol., 2010). Furthermore, we determine how auditory training, acquisition of special skills, or extraordinary demands on the auditory system, such as blindness, cause reorganization in the neural substrate of auditory perception (Kujala et al., TINS, 2000). We also constantly strive for improving research paradigms for efficient data acquisition. For example, with the new "multi-feature" paradigm ("Optimum-1"; Näätänen et al., Clin. Neurophysiol., 2004) it is possible to record the MMN for about 5 sound features in the same time in which MMN was acquired with the oddball paradigm for 1-2 features only.