title: Listening difficulties in children: bottom-up and top-down contributions.
abstract: The brain mechanisms of hearing include large regions of the anterior temporal, prefrontal, and inferior parietal cortex, and an extensive network of descending connections between the cortex and sub-cortical components of what is presently known as the auditory system. One important function of these additional ('top-down') mechanisms for hearing is to modulate the ascending, sensory ('bottom-up') auditory information from the ear. In children, normal, immature hearing during the first decade of life is more strongly influenced by top-down mechanisms than in adulthood. In some children, impaired top-down function presents a significant challenge to their auditory perception, often associated with a range of language and learning difficulties and sometimes called auditory processing disorder.
authors: MRC Institute of Hearing Research, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. david.moore@ihr.mrc.ac.uk
authors: David R
authors: DR
authors: Moore
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001306:Auditory Pathways / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001308:Auditory Perceptual Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D002648:Child; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D056228:Feedback, Sensory / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy; D007859:Learning Disabilities / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010897:Pitch Discrimination / Q000502:physiology; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013813:Therapy, Computer-Assisted