Faculty Bibliography

Two forms of brainstem plasticity are known to occur: an immediate stimulus probability-based and learning-dependent plasticity. Whether these kinds of plasticity interact is unknown. We examined this question in a training experiment involving three phases: (1) an initial baseline measurement, (2) a 9-session training paradigm, and (3) a retest measurement. At the outset of the experiment, auditory brainstem responses (ABR) were recorded to two unfamiliar pitch patterns presented in an oddball paradigm. Then half the participants underwent sound-to-meaning training where they learned to match these pitch patterns to novel words, with the remaining participants serving as controls who received no auditory training. Nine days after the baseline measurement, the pitch patterns were re-presented to all participants using the same oddball paradigm. Analysis of the baseline recordings revealed an effect of probability: when a sound was presented infrequently, the pitch contour was represented less accurately in the ABR than when it was presented frequently. After training, pitch tracking was more accurate for infrequent sounds, particularly for the pitch pattern that was encoded more poorly pre-training. However, the control group was stable over the same interval. Our results provide evidence that probability-based and learning-dependent plasticity interact in the brainstem.

To capture patterns in the environment, neurons in the auditory brainstem rapidly alter their firing based on the statistical properties of the soundscape. How this neural sensitivity relates to behavior is unclear. We tackled this question by combining neural and behavioral measures of statistical learning, a general-purpose learning mechanism governing many complex behaviors including language acquisition. We recorded complex auditory brainstem responses (cABRs) while human adults implicitly learned to segment patterns embedded in an uninterrupted sound sequence based on their statistical characteristics. The brainstem's sensitivity to statistical structure was measured as the change in the cABR between a patterned and a pseudo-randomized sequence composed from the same set of sounds but differing in their sound-to-sound probabilities. Using this methodology, we provide the first demonstration that behavioral-indices of rapid learning relate to individual differences in brainstem physiology. We found that neural sensitivity to statistical structure manifested along a continuum, from adaptation to enhancement, where cABR enhancement (patterned>pseudo-random) tracked with greater rapid statistical learning than adaptation. Short- and long-term auditory experiences (days to years) are known to promote brainstem plasticity and here we provide a conceptual advance by showing that the brainstem is also integral to rapid learning occurring over minutes.