WP1 – First, the team members of WP1 conducted a collective literature review on the topic of brain networks that support maturation of speech perception at adolescence. Simultaneously, the PI wrote a mini-review on the development of auditory scene analysis, an ability that is thought to underlie complex auditory processes. It led to the analysis of electroencephalographic data collected while children, adolescents and adults with typical hearing performed auditory scene analysis. Results indicate a protracted development of the neural signatures of auditory scene analysis until (late) adolescence, which could in fact constitute a bottleneck to speech perception in noise abilities.
The second activity undertaken within WP1 is neuroimaging project that focuses on the neurobiological changes in the structure and function of the auditory pathways, that are thought to be affected by puberty and/or adolescent brain development. As part of this study, we are recruiting a cohort of adolescents who are invited to go into an MRI scanner, undergo an electroencephalography, and take part in cognitive and psychoacoustic tasks evaluating complex auditory processing. Data collection is ongoing, and will be part of a longitudinal follow-up.
WP2a – If adolescence really offers a second sensitive period for auditory processing, its outcome likely varies according to sensory input received during childhood. Therefore, we are currently recruiting children/adolescents with a mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss to take part in a study that uses the same protocol as in WP1. Their functional and structural neural responses will be compared to those of puberty-, age- and gender-matched participants with typical hearing (selected from the WP1 cohort).
WP2b: Noise exposure could be especially deleterious to adolescents – as hinted by animal work and some epidemiological data. Here, a study was conducted to evaluate the prevalence of noise-induced acquired hearing loss at adolescence. ~5% of our adolescent sample (n = 200) showed signs of acquired hearing loss due to noise-exposure. Neither puberty nor age appeared to be significant predictors of acquired hearing loss in our sample. Future work related to this work package will explore the possibility that noise exposure varies with socioeconomical status of adolescents.
WP2c will be dedicated to potentially larger effects of auditory training during (than before/after) adolescence. Experimental work for this work package will start in 2026.
WP3 – This work package was built as a mirror to WP1, with an important difference: it focuses on puberty offset (instead of puberty onset in WP1). Therefore, the protocol is exactly the same as in WP1, but applied to adolescents who are at mid- to late-pubertal stages. Data collection is ongoing.
Following the collective literature review on the brain networks supporting speech perception at adolescence (WP1), it became obvious that some changes in real-life speech processing might be triggered by puberty, especially around its offset. This led to the analysis of a neurophysiological dataset, taking into account pubertal stage and sex-steroid changes around puberty offset. So far, these are our most promising results: in a cohort of n = 150 participants (9 to 22 years of age), pubertal stage seems to drive changes in the neurophysiological response to natural speech, with marked changes between mid- and late pubertal stages.
