IntroductionArticulography and functional neuroimaging are two major tools for studying the neurobiology of speech production. Until now, however, it has generally not been feasible to use both in the same experimental setup because of technical incompatibilities between the two methodologies.MethodsHere we describe results from a novel articulography system dubbed Magneto-articulography for the Assessment of Speech Kinematics (MASK), which is technically compatible with magnetoencephalography (MEG) brain scanning systems. In the present paper we describe our methodological and analytic approach for extracting brain motor activities related to key kinematic and coordination event parameters derived from time-registered MASK tracking measurements. Data were collected from 10 healthy adults with tracking coils on the tongue, lips, and jaw. Analyses targeted the gestural landmarks of reiterated utterances/ipa/ and /api/, produced at normal and faster rates.ResultsThe results show that (1) Speech sensorimotor cortex can be reliably located in peri-rolandic regions of the left hemisphere; (2) mu (8–12 Hz) and beta band (13–30 Hz) neuromotor oscillations are present in the speech signals and contain information structures that are independent of those present in higher-frequency bands; and (3) hypotheses concerning the information content of speech motor rhythms can be systematically evaluated with multivariate pattern analytic techniques.DiscussionThese results show that MASK provides the capability, for deriving subject-specific articulatory parameters, based on well-established and robust motor control parameters, in the same experimental setup as the MEG brain recordings and in temporal and spatial co-register with the brain data. The analytic approach described here provides new capabilities for testing hypotheses concerning the types of kinematic information that are encoded and processed within specific components of the speech neuromotor system.

中文翻译：

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从言语运动皮层的β带运动节律中解码运动学信息：使用并发言语运动跟踪和脑磁图的方法/分析方法

简介关节描记术和功能神经影像学是研究言语产生的神经生物学的两种主要工具。然而，到目前为止，由于两种方法之间的技术不兼容性，在同一实验装置中使用这两种方法通常还不可行。方法在这里，我们描述了一种称为“用于评估语音运动学的磁发音法”(MASK) 的新型发音学系统的结果，在技术上与脑磁图 (MEG) 大脑扫描系统兼容。在本文中，我们描述了我们的方法和分析方法，用于提取与从时间记录的 MASK 跟踪测量中导出的关键运动学和协调事件参数相关的大脑运动活动。数据收集自 10 名在舌头、嘴唇和下巴上安装了跟踪线圈的健康成年人。分析针对以正常和更快的速率产生的重复话语/ipa/和/api/的手势标志。结果结果表明（1）言语感觉运动皮层可以可靠地位于左半球的罗兰区周围； (2) mu (8-12 Hz) 和 beta 带 (13-30 Hz) 神经运动振荡存在于语音信号中，并且包含独立于较高频带中存在的信息结构； (3)关于言语运动节律信息内容的假设可以通过多元模式分析技术进行系统评估。讨论这些结果表明，MASK 提供了基于完善且稳健的运动控制参数推导特定对象的发音参数的能力，在与 MEG 大脑记录相同的实验设置中，并在时间和空间上与大脑数据共同注册。这里描述的分析方法提供了新的功能，用于测试有关在言语神经运动系统的特定组件内编码和处理的运动学信息类型的假设。