Predicting auditory feedback control of speech production from subregional shape of subcortical structures

Although a growing body of research has focused on the cortical sensorimotor mechanisms that support auditory feedback control of speech production, much less is known about the subcortical contributions to this control process. This study examined whether subregional anatomy of subcortical structures assessed by statistical shape analysis is associated with vocal compensations and cortical event-related potentials in response to pitch feedback errors. The results revealed significant negative correlations between the magnitudes of vocal compensations and subregional shape of the right thalamus, between the latencies of vocal compensations and subregional shape of the left caudate and pallidum, and between the latencies of cortical N1 responses and subregional shape of the left putamen. These associations indicate that smaller local volumes of the basal ganglia and thalamus are predictive of slower and larger neurobehavioral responses to vocal pitch errors. Furthermore, increased local volumes of the left hippocampus and right amygdala were predictive of larger vocal compensations, suggesting that there is an interplay between the memory-related subcortical structures and auditory-vocal integration. These results, for the first time, provide evidence for differential associations of subregional morphology of the basal ganglia, thalamus, hippocampus, and amygdala with neurobehavioral processing of vocal pitch errors, suggesting that subregional shape measures of subcortical structures can predict behavioral outcome of auditory-vocal integration and associated neural features. Hum Brain Mapp 39:459-471, 2018. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.