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The Effect of Contracting COVID on Speech Perception in High-School Students: Evidence from the Brain

June 29, 2023

Abstract: Increasing evidence suggests that Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 has affected the global population, but a group often overlooked is the adolescent population. Facing milder symptoms of COVID-19 as compared to their older counterparts, adolescents are not the prime focus of COVID research. This study measured the impacts of COVID on teenage neural processing and speech perception.
The current study compared the neural response to speech sounds in high-schoolers with and without a history of contracting COVID. event-related potential paradigm was used, and the electro-encephalogram (EEG) waves were time-locked to each speech stimulus. The mismatch negativity responses ( the difference between the standard and deviant sounds) were compared between the two participant groups. The two English vowels /ɪ/ and /ɛ/ were used in a nine-equal-step continuum as stimuli.
Overall, adolescents without a history of COVID showed larger standard and deviant responses at all three brain regions and across both standard and deviant conditions, except deviant conditions at the dominant hemisphere. Taken together, these findings suggest that contracting COVID may have long-term effects on the brains of adolescents. Future studies may examine the longer-term effect of COVID on the developing brain, given that participants of this study who had COVID were tested within 6 months of recovery.


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