Repeated Vowel Production Affects Features of Neural Activity in Sensorimotor Cortex

The sensorimotor cortex is responsible for the generation of movements and interest in the ability to use this area for decoding speech by brain-computer interfaces has increased recently. Speech decoding is challenging however, since the relationship between neural activity and motor actions is not completely understood. Non-linearity between neural activity and movement has been found for instance for simple finger movements. Despite equal motor output, neural activity amplitudes are affected by preceding movements and the time between movements. It is unknown if neural activity is also affected by preceding motor actions during speech. We addressed this issue, using electrocorticographic high frequency band (HFB; 75-135 Hz) power changes in the sensorimotor cortex during discrete vowel generation. Three subjects with temporarily implanted electrode grids produced the /i/ vowel at repetition rates of 1, 1.33 and 1.66 Hz. For every repetition, the HFB power amplitude was determined. During the first utterance, most electrodes showed a large HFB power peak, which decreased for subsequent utterances. This result could not be explained by differences in performance. With increasing duration between utterances, more electrodes showed an equal response to all repetitions, suggesting that the duration between vowel productions influences the effect of previous productions on sensorimotor cortex activity. Our findings correspond with previous studies for finger movements and bear relevance for the development of brain-computer interfaces that employ speech decoding based on brain signals, in that past utterances will need to be taken into account for these systems to work accurately.