Music is ubiquitous, both in its instrumental and vocal forms. While speech perception at birth has been at the core of an extensive corpus of research, the origins of the ability to discriminate instrumental or vocal melodies is still not well investigated. In previous studies comparing vocal and musical perception, the vocal stimuli were mainly related to speaking, including language, and not to the non-language singing voice. In the present study, to better compare a melodic instrumental line with the voice, we used singing as a comparison stimulus, to reduce the dissimilarities between the two stimuli as much as possible, separating language perception from vocal musical perception. In the present study, 45 newborns were scanned, 10 full-term born infants and 35 preterm infants at term-equivalent age (mean gestational age at test = 40.17 weeks, SD = 0.44) using functional magnetic resonance imaging while listening to five melodies played by a musical instrument (flute) or sung by a female voice. To examine the dynamic task-based effective connectivity, we employed a psychophysiological interaction of co-activation patterns (PPI-CAPs) analysis, using the auditory cortices as seed region, to investigate moment-to-moment changes in task-driven modulation of cortical activity during an fMRI task. Our findings reveal condition-specific, dynamically occurring patterns of co-activation (PPI-CAPs). During the vocal condition, the auditory cortex co-activates with the sensorimotor and salience networks, while during the instrumental condition, it co-activates with the visual cortex and the superior frontal cortex. Our results show that the vocal stimulus elicits sensorimotor aspects of the auditory perception and is processed as a more salient stimulus while the instrumental condition activated higher-order cognitive and visuo-spatial networks. Common neural signatures for both auditory stimuli were found in the precuneus and posterior cingulate gyrus. Finally, this study adds knowledge on the dynamic brain connectivity underlying the newborns capability of early and specialized auditory processing, highlighting the relevance of dynamic approaches to study brain function in newborn populations.

UNASSIGNED: To study the effects of playing mother\'s recorded voice to preterm infants in the NICU on their mothers\' mental health as measured by the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale -21 (DASS-21) questionnaire.
UNASSIGNED: This was a pilot single center prospective randomized controlled trial done at a level IV NICU. The trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04559620). Inclusion criteria were mothers of preterm infants with gestational ages between 26wks and 30 weeks. DASS-21 questionnaire was administered to all the enrolled mothers in the first week after birth followed by recording of their voice by the music therapists. In the interventional group, recorded maternal voice was played into the infant incubator between 15 and 21 days of life. A second DASS-21 was administered between 21 and 23 days of life. The Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used to compare DASS-21 scores between the two groups and Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare the pre- and post-intervention DASS-21 scores.
UNASSIGNED: Forty eligible mothers were randomized: 20 to the intervention group and 20 to the control group. The baseline maternal and neonatal characteristics were similar between the two groups. There was no significant difference in the DASS-21 scores between the two groups at baseline or after the study intervention. There was no difference in the pre- and post-interventional DASS-21 scores or its individual components in the experimental group. There was a significant decrease in the total DASS-21 score and the anxiety component of DASS-21 between weeks 1 and 4 in the control group.
UNASSIGNED: In this pilot randomized control study, recorded maternal voice played into preterm infant\'s incubator did not have any effect on maternal mental health as measured by the DASS-21 questionnaire. Data obtained in this pilot study are useful in future RCTs (Randomized Controlled Trial) to address this important issue.

BACKGROUND: Vocal biomarkers, derived from acoustic analysis of vocal characteristics, offer noninvasive avenues for medical screening, diagnostics, and monitoring. Previous research demonstrated the feasibility of predicting type 2 diabetes mellitus through acoustic analysis of smartphone-recorded speech. Building upon this work, this study explores the impact of audio data compression on acoustic vocal biomarker development, which is critical for broader applicability in health care.
OBJECTIVE: The objective of this research is to analyze how common audio compression algorithms (MP3, M4A, and WMA) applied by 3 different conversion tools at 2 bitrates affect features crucial for vocal biomarker detection.
METHODS: The impact of audio data compression on acoustic vocal biomarker development was investigated using uncompressed voice samples converted into MP3, M4A, and WMA formats at 2 bitrates (320 and 128 kbps) with MediaHuman (MH) Audio Converter, WonderShare (WS) UniConverter, and Fast Forward Moving Picture Experts Group (FFmpeg). The data set comprised recordings from 505 participants, totaling 17,298 audio files, collected using a smartphone. Participants recorded a fixed English sentence up to 6 times daily for up to 14 days. Feature extraction, including pitch, jitter, intensity, and Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs), was conducted using Python and Parselmouth. The Wilcoxon signed rank test and the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons were used for statistical analysis.
RESULTS: In this study, 36,970 audio files were initially recorded from 505 participants, with 17,298 recordings meeting the fixed sentence criteria after screening. Differences between the audio conversion software, MH, WS, and FFmpeg, were notable, impacting compression outcomes such as constant or variable bitrates. Analysis encompassed diverse data compression formats and a wide array of voice features and MFCCs. Wilcoxon signed rank tests yielded P values, with those below the Bonferroni-corrected significance level indicating significant alterations due to compression. The results indicated feature-specific impacts of compression across formats and bitrates. MH-converted files exhibited greater resilience compared to WS-converted files. Bitrate also influenced feature stability, with 38 cases affected uniquely by a single bitrate. Notably, voice features showed greater stability than MFCCs across conversion methods.
CONCLUSIONS: Compression effects were found to be feature specific, with MH and FFmpeg showing greater resilience. Some features were consistently affected, emphasizing the importance of understanding feature resilience for diagnostic applications. Considering the implementation of vocal biomarkers in health care, finding features that remain consistent through compression for data storage or transmission purposes is valuable. Focused on specific features and formats, future research could broaden the scope to include diverse features, real-time compression algorithms, and various recording methods. This study enhances our understanding of audio compression\'s influence on voice features and MFCCs, providing insights for developing applications across fields. The research underscores the significance of feature stability in working with compressed audio data, laying a foundation for informed voice data use in evolving technological landscapes.

UNASSIGNED: Physiotherapy has the potential to benefit people with voice and throat problems in conjunction with existing services.
UNASSIGNED: This study aims to explore the impact and role of physiotherapy in voice and throat care, from the perspective of people who have accessed such care. Gaining a better understanding of how physiotherapy contributes to care has the potential to improve services.
UNASSIGNED: An interpretive description design was used to explore participants perspectives of the impact and role of physiotherapy through individual semi-structured interviews with people who had accessed physiotherapy for voice or throat care through a single private practice. Transcripts were analyzed with a general inductive approach suitable for qualitative evaluation data. Data were analyzed from six interviews and four main themes emerged, with each theme further characterized by categories.
UNASSIGNED: Two themes related to the impact of physiotherapy in voice and throat care: Offers a deeper understanding of issues affecting their voice/throat; facilitates individualized specific management. Two themes related to the role of physiotherapy in voice and throat care: Complements existing services; Valuable service. Each theme is further illustrated by categories.
UNASSIGNED: This study indicates that physiotherapy for voice and throat problems can complement existing services while adding value, providing people with a deeper understanding of their problem and facilitating specific management. There is great potential for physiotherapy to benefit voice users. Future research should further evaluate the potential to include physiotherapy in the voice care team and consider how best to capture the broad impacts illustrated.

BACKGROUND: Novel and scalable psychotherapies are urgently needed to address the depression and anxiety epidemic. Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), a voice-based virtual coach named Lumen was developed to deliver problem solving treatment (PST). The first pilot trial showed promising changes in cognitive control measured by functional neuroimaging and improvements in depression and anxiety symptoms.
METHODS: To further validate Lumen in a 3-arm randomized clinical trial, 200 participants with mild-to-moderate depression and/or anxiety will be randomly assigned in a 2:1:1 ratio to receive Lumen-coached PST, human-coached PST as active treatment comparison, or a waitlist control condition where participants can receive Lumen after the trial period. Participants will be assessed at baseline and 18 weeks. The primary aim is to confirm neural target engagement by testing whether compared with waitlist controls, Lumen participants will show significantly greater improvements from baseline to 18 weeks in the a priori neural target for cognitive control, right dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex engaged by the go/nogo task (primary superiority hypothesis). A secondary hypothesis will test whether compared with human-coached PST participants, Lumen participants will show equivalent improvements (i.e., noninferiority) in the same neural target from baseline to 18 weeks. The second aim is to examine (1) treatment effects on depression and anxiety symptoms, psychosocial functioning, and quality of life outcomes, and (2) relationships of neural target engagement to these patient-reported outcomes.
CONCLUSIONS: This study offers potential to improve the reach and impact of psychotherapy, mitigating access, cost, and stigma barriers for people with depression and/or anxiety.
RESULTS: gov #: NCT05603923.

Recognizing talkers\' identity via speech is an important social skill in interpersonal interaction. Behavioral evidence has shown that listeners can identify better the voices of their native language than those of a non-native language, which is known as the language familiarity effect (LFE). However, its underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. This study therefore investigated how the LFE occurs at the neural level by employing functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Late unbalanced bilinguals were first asked to learn to associate strangers\' voices with their identities and then tested for recognizing the talkers\' identities based on their voices speaking a language either highly familiar (i.e., native language Chinese), or moderately familiar (i.e., second language English), or completely unfamiliar (i.e., Ewe) to participants. Participants identified talkers the most accurately in Chinese and the least accurately in Ewe. Talker identification was quicker in Chinese than in English and Ewe but reaction time did not differ between the two non-native languages. At the neural level, recognizing voices speaking Chinese relative to English/Ewe produced less activity in the inferior frontal gyrus, precentral/postcentral gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, and superior temporal sulcus/gyrus while no difference was found between English and Ewe, indicating facilitation of voice identification by the automatic phonological encoding in the native language. These findings shed new light on the interrelations between language ability and voice recognition, revealing that the brain activation pattern of the LFE depends on the automaticity of language processing.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this manuscript was twofold: to investigate how clinical voice and swallow questionnaires align with self-reports from speech/voice and swallow domains of the Unified Parkinson\'s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), and how decline in self-reported speech/voice measures predict decline in self-reported swallowing measures.
METHODS: This observational, preliminary cross-sectional study included 15 people diagnosed with Idiopathic Parkinson\'s Disease. Participants completed the Voice Related Quality of Life (V-RQOL), Sydney Swallow Questionnaire (SSQ), and cognitive screening (Montreal Cognitive Assessment; MoCA) to account for cognitive impairment during self-reported speech/voice and swallow measures. They also completed the speech/voice and swallow components of the UPDRS.
RESULTS: There were significant associations between the SSQ and UPDRS question 2.3 (chewing/swallowing) (P < 0.001), but not between UPDRS question 2.1 (speech/voice) and V-RQOL. However, the MoCA was significantly and directionally associated with V-RQOL scores (P = 0.01). Finally, the V-RQOL was significantly associated with SSQ scores in a multiple regression model (P = 0.02).
CONCLUSIONS: Speech/voice and swallow-related questions from the UPDRS may be viable initial screening tools to facilitate faster and earlier laryngeal function testing. Substantially more research should be undertaken to assess how well these UPDRS question domains are indicative of underlying speech/voice or swallow dysfunction.

The aim of the study was to compare the acoustic characteristics of voice between Auditory Brainstem Implantees, Cochlear Implantees and normal hearing children. Voice parameters such as fundamental frequency, formant frequencies, perturbation measures, and harmonic to noise ratio were measured in a total of 30 children out of which 10 were Auditory Brainstem Implantees, 10 were Cochlear Implantees and 10 were normal hearing children. Parametric and nonparametric statistics were done to establish the nature of significance between the three groups. Overall deviancies were seen in the implanted group for all acoustic parameters. However abnormal deviations were seen in individuals with Auditory Brainstem Implants indicating the deficit in the feedback loop impacting the voice characteristics. The deviancy in feedback could attribute to the poor performance in ABI and CI. The CI performed comparatively better when compared to the ABI group indicating a slight feedback loop due to the type of Implant. However, there needs to be additional evidence supporting this and there is a need to carry out the same study using a larger sample size and a longitudinal design.

UNASSIGNED: The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of voice therapy combined with standard anti-reflux therapy in reducing symptoms and signs of laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR).
UNASSIGNED: A randomised clinical trial was conducted. Fifty-two patients with LPR diagnosed by 24 h multichannel intraluminal impedance-pH monitoring were randomly allocated in two groups: medical treatment (MT) and medical plus voice therapy (VT). Clinical symptoms and laryngeal signs were assessed at baseline and after 3 months of treatment with the Reflux Symptom Index (RSI), Reflux Finding Score (RFS), Voice Handicap Index (VHI) and GRBAS scales.
UNASSIGNED: Groups had similar scores at baseline. At 3-month follow-up, a significant decrease in RSI and RFS total scores were found in both groups although it appeared to be more robust in the VT group. G and R scores of the GRBAS scale significantly improved after treatment in both groups, with better results in the VT group. The VHI total score at 3 months improved more in the VT group (VHI delta 9.54) than in the MT group (VHI delta 5.38) (p < 0.001).
UNASSIGNED: The addition of voice therapy to medications and diet appears to be more effective in improving treatment outcomes in subjects with LPR. Voice therapy warrants consideration in addition to medication and diet when treating patients with LPR.

BACKGROUND: Due to medical procedures, preterm infants are at high risk for side effects of pain. In this regard, heel lancing for capillary blood sampling is a common painful procedure. The present study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of a simulated intrauterine sound on behavioral and physiological indices of pain due to heel-prick blood sampling in preterm infants.
METHODS: A double‑blind randomized clinical trial (RCT) was conducted. The data were collected from September 23 to December 22, 2019. We measured the effect of a simulated intrauterine sound on changes in the behavioral and physiological parameters of pain (heart rate, SPO2) caused by heel lance that was measured 5 min before the intervention, during the sampling, and 5 min after the procedure. We measured behavioral pain by video recording the infants\' faces and then the scoring neonatal infant pain scale (NIPS). Heart rate and SPO2 were measured using a pulse oximeter device. The data were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and independent t‑test in SPSS software version 20.0.
RESULTS: Eighty infants were randomized (40 in each group). Mean scores NIPS during and after intervention were in the intervention group (3.55 ± 0.84, 95% CI: 3.30-3.80(, and (1.15 ± 0.84, 95%: 0.95-1.35) and in the control group (5.57 ± 0.95, 95% CI:5.30-5.85) and (3.00 ± 0.98) respectively. There were significant differences in scores of NIPS between the two study groups during (p < 0.001) and five min after heel lancing (p < 0.001). Mean scores of heart rate in the three phases of before, during, and five min after the intervention were respectively in the intervention group (127.57 ± 4.45, 95% CI:126.27-128.99), (131.07 ± 6.54, 95% CI:129.20-133.22), (128.45 ± 5.15, 95% CI:127.02-130.07) and in the control group (128.67 ± 4.57, 95% CI:127.32-130.07), (136.07 ± 7.24, 95% CI:133.90-138.37), and (132.42 ± 6.47, 95% CI:130.37-134.49). There were significant differences in heart rate between the intervention and the control group during (p = 0.002) and five min after the heel lance (p = 0.003). Mean scores of SPO2 in the three phases of baseline, during, and five min after the intervention were respectively in the intervention group (96.72 ± 0.93, 95% CI:96.42-97.00), (91.47 ± 1.46, 95% CI:91.05-91.92), (94.17 ± 1.03, 95% CI:93.22-94.00) and in the control group (96.6 ± 0.84, 95% CI:96.35-96.85), (91.5 ± 1.24, 95% CI:91.12-91.87), and (93.60 ± 1.27, 95% CI:93.85-94.50).
CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that the simulated intrauterine sound reduces the behavioral pain and heart rate in the intervention group during and after heel lance. These results suggest using the method during the painful heel lancing to reduce pain parameters in preterm infants.