UCSF home page UCSF home page About UCSF UCSF Medical Center
UCSF navigation bar

Neuroscience Graduate Program at UCSF

Faculty - Edward Chang, M.D.

Speech Mechanisms

Research Description

Speech Mechanisms

A unique and defining trait of human behavior is our ability to communicate through speech. My laboratory is interested in determining the basic mechanisms that underlie speech perception and production.  While much of this processing has been localized to the peri-sylvian cortex, including Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, the fundamental organizational principles of these neural circuits are completely unknown.

To address this, my laboratory applies a variety of experimental approaches including psychophysics, local field potential and microelectrode array recordings, electrocortical stimulation, and real-time signal processing.  These methods allow us to examine both local circuitry and global network dynamics spanning multiple cortical and sub-cortical regions with unparalleled spatial and temporal resolution in humans.

Our central goal is to provide a mechanistic account for the major properties of speech behavior in normal speakers and those with language disorders. Our ongoing research is not only deepening understanding of speech and its disorders, but also is leading directly to safer brain mapping methods to preserve language function during awake neurosurgical procedures.

Back to Top

Current Projects

Speech perception
1. How do invariant cortical sensory representations give rise to categorical perception?
2. How does response selectivity of auditory cortical neurons account for high-order, complex sound processing?
3. How does the auditory cortex maintain robust speech representation in multi-speaker or noisy environmental contexts?

Speech production
1. What is the basic functional organization of the speech motor cortex and Broca’s area?
2. How are syllable sequences encoded in these brain regions to generate meaningful word forms?
3. What are the mechanisms by which sensory feedback is used to guide vocal motor control?

Back to Top

Lab Members

Gopala Anumanchipalli, PhD (CMU)
Liberty Hamilton, PhD (UC Berkeley)
Matt Leonard, PhD (UC San Diego)

David Conant (Neuroscience)
Ben Dichter (BioEngineering)
David Moses (BioEngineering)
Leah Muller (BioEngineering)
Claire Tang (Neuroscience)

Back to Top

Selected Publications

Bouchard KE, Chang EF.  Control of spoken vowel acoustics and the influence of phonetic context in human speech sensorimotor cortex. J Neurosci 2014 Sep 17; 34(38):12662-77.  

Leonard MK, Chang EF. Dynamic speech representations in the human temporal lobe. Trends Cogn Sci. 2014 Sep; 18(9):472-479.  

Mesgarani N, Cheung C, Johnson K, Chang EF.  Phonetic feature encoding in human superior temporal gyrus. Science 2014 Feb 28;343(6174):1006-10.  

see Perspective from Grodzinsky Y, Nelken I. The neural code that makes us human. Science 2104 Feb 28:343(6174):978-9. 

Conant D, Bouchard KE, Chang EF. Speech map in the human ventral sensory-motor cortex. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 2014 Feb;24C:63-67.

Edwards E, Chang EF. Syllabic (2-5Hz) and fluctuation (1-10Hz) ranges in speech and auditory processing. Hearing Research 2013 Nov;305:113-34.

Houde JH, Kort NS, Niziolek CA, Chang EF, Nagarajan SS. Neural evidence for state feedback control of speaking. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics 19, pp.060178 (June 2013). 

Bouchard KE, Mesgarani N, Johnson K, Chang EF.  Functional organization of human sensorimotor cortex for speech articulation. Nature2013 Jun 27; 498(7455):526. PMCID: PMC360666

Chang EF*, Niziolek C*, Nagarajan SS, Knight RT, Houde JS. Human cortical sensorimotor network underlying feedback control of vocal pitch. Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences 2013 Feb 12; 110(7):2653-8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1216827110. PMCID: PMC357493

Cheung C, Chang EF. Real-time, single-trial mapping of cortical event-related activation. Journal of Neural Engineering 2012 Aug;9(4):046018 

Mesgarani N & Chang EF. Selective cortical representation of attended speech in multi-talker speech perception. Nature 2012 May 10; 485(7397):233-6 

Pasley B, David SV, Mesgarani N, Flinker A, Shamma SA, Crone NE, Knight RT, Chang EF.  Reconstructing speech from human auditory cortex. PLoS Biology 2012 Jan; 10(1). PMCID: PMC3269422 

Chang, EF*, Rieger, J*, Johnson, KD, Berger, MS, Barbaro, NM, Knight RT. Categorical speech representation in the human superior temporal gyrus. Nature Neuroscience 2010 Nov; 13(11):1428-32. PMCID: PMC2967728

Chang, EF*, Edwards, E*, Nagarajan, SS, Fogelson, N, Dalal, SS, Canolty, RT, Kirsch, HE, Barbaro, NM, Knight RT. Cortical spatiotemporal dynamics underlying phonological target detection in humans. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 2010 May 13.

Chang EF, Wang DD, Perry D, Barbaro NM, Berger MS. Homotopic organization of right hemisphere essential language sites in right and bilateral cerebral hemispheric dominance. Journal of Neurosurgery 

De Villers-sidani, E, Chang, EF, Bao, S, Merzenich, MM. Critical period window for spectral tuning defined in the primary auditory cortex (A1).The Journal of Neuroscience 2007 Jan 3;27(1):180-9.

Chang, EF, Bao, S, Imaizumi, K, Schreiner, CE, Merzenich, MM. The development of spectral and temporal response selectivity in the auditory cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 2005 Nov 8;102(45):16460-5. PMCID: PMC1283465 

Bao, S, Chang, EF, Woods J, Merzenich, MM. Temporal plasticity in the primary auditory cortex induced by operant perceptual learning.Nature Neuroscience 2004 Sep; 7(9):974-81.   

Chang, EF, Merzenich, MM. Environmental noise retards auditory cortical development. Science 2003 Apr 18; 300(5618): 498-502. 

Back to Top

Edward Chang, M.D.





Office Address

UCSF MC 0444
675 Nelson Rising Lane, Room 511
San Francisco, CA 94158

Other Websites

Lab Website

Center for Integrative Neuroscience

Neurological Surgery