Phase Property of Envelope-Tracking EEG Response Is Preserved in Patients with Disorders of Consciousness

Ziting Jia; Chuan Xu; Jingqi Li; Jian Gao; Nai Ding; Benyan Luo; Jiajie Zou

doi:10.1523/ENEURO.0130-23.2023

Phase Property of Envelope-Tracking EEG Response Is Preserved in Patients with Disorders of Consciousness

eNeuro. 2023 Aug 10;10(8):ENEURO.0130-23.2023. doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0130-23.2023. Print 2023 Aug.

Authors

Ziting Jia¹, Chuan Xu², Jingqi Li³, Jian Gao³, Nai Ding⁴, Benyan Luo⁵, Jiajie Zou⁶

Affiliations

¹ The Second Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan 250033, China.
² Department of Neurology, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310019, China.
³ Department of Rehabilitation, Hangzhou Mingzhou Brain Rehabilitation Hospital, Hangzhou 311215, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Ministry of Education, College of Biomedical Engineering and Instrument Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
⁵ Department of Neurology, First Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310003, China luobenyan@zju.edu.cn jiajiezou@zju.edu.cn.
⁶ Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Ministry of Education, College of Biomedical Engineering and Instrument Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China luobenyan@zju.edu.cn jiajiezou@zju.edu.cn.

Abstract

When listening to speech, the low-frequency cortical response below 10 Hz can track the speech envelope. Previous studies have demonstrated that the phase lag between speech envelope and cortical response can reflect the mechanism by which the envelope-tracking response is generated. Here, we analyze whether the mechanism to generate the envelope-tracking response is modulated by the level of consciousness, by studying how the stimulus-response phase lag is modulated by the disorder of consciousness (DoC). It is observed that DoC patients in general show less reliable neural tracking of speech. Nevertheless, the stimulus-response phase lag changes linearly with frequency between 3.5 and 8 Hz, for DoC patients who show reliable cortical tracking to speech, regardless of the consciousness state. The mean phase lag is also consistent across these DoC patients. These results suggest that the envelope-tracking response to speech can be generated by an automatic process that is barely modulated by the consciousness state.

Keywords: envelope tracking; neural entrainment; phase coherence; speech.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Acoustic Stimulation / methods
Consciousness
Consciousness Disorders*
Electroencephalography / methods
Humans
Speech Perception* / physiology