Asymmetric, dynamic adaptation in prefrontal cortex during dichotic listening tasks

Significance: Speech processing tasks can be used to assess the integrity and health of many functional and structural aspects of the brain. Despite the potential merits of such behavioral tests as clinical assessment tools, however, the underlying neural substrates remain relatively unclear. Aim: We aimed to obtain a more in-depth portrait of hemispheric asymmetry during dichotic listening tasks at the level of the prefrontal cortex, where prior studies have reported inconsistent results. Approach: To avoid central confounds that limited previous studies, we used diffuse correlation spectroscopy to optically monitor cerebral blood flow (CBF) in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during dichotic listening tasks in human subjects. Results: We found that dichotic listening tasks elicited hemispheric asymmetries in both amplitude as well as kinetics. When listening task blocks were repeated, there was an accommodative reduction in the response amplitude of the left, but not the right hemisphere. Conclusions: These heretofore unobserved trends depict a more nuanced portrait of the functional asymmetry that has been observed previously. To our knowledge, these results additionally represent the first direct measurements of CBF during a speech processing task recommended by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association for diagnosing auditory processing disorders.