I want to talk about listening dissonance, listening
dissonance and filtering noises, unwanted noises
up through this. If you want to look at it through
here or just up through here, listening to silence
kind of starts with three and four because we're
losing our capacity to inhibit noises coming
up. So this is going to be gone just for the
little ABR table. And I want to talk about listening
dissonance though. Because listening to dissonance
is why I want to talk about it so bad is it's
not well understood. You probably never even
heard of it. But every autistic phenotype struggles
with it. I promise you. It's when sounds blend.
It's a big problem. So what is this? It just
sounds blending. It's exactly what it is. So
there's two things that I want to kind of get
into. Two kind of... analogies that I think might
help with this because of the inhibition the
excitation inhibition so remember if we draw
out the seesaw analogy right excitation here
inhibition here this is the default for the autistic
phenotype high excitation low inhibition because
of a lot of those inhibitory cells being missed
in large part here, and throughout, and throughout
the brain regions, okay? Because we're going
to talk about more cortex areas with this listening
dissonance, and I think you'll be able to make
sense of it. So as signals come in, and we're
reaching the cochlear neculuses here, with, from
two to three in the brain stem response, and
then from three to four is where it really starts
to kind of blend. Okay, by the time the signal
reaches this brain stem area here, this superior
olive right here and the inferior all the way
up to the inferior colliculus. So from three
to four and then four to five is whenever it's
starting to happen. A roll of these areas, the
olive area, the laminscus and the inferior colliculus
is suppressing unwanted sounds. So how does it
know what it wants to pay attention to? Is a
good question. Well, one thing you can think
of is we're mapping this out from a beginning.
But rarely, if ever, as you're navigating the
social world as a living organism is You're not
going to have any noises and then suddenly noises
are just going to hit start So that's something
you really need to consider. Okay, there's always
background noises going on if you're up whenever
it's sending signals up new signals coming up
and The thalamus has recruited out with that
the thalamus cortical pathway in the auditory
cortex the brain can kind of respond back and
understand what noises are relevant, what noises
are salient versus the ones that are not. So
it can send signals back down to the olivary
cortex, the lamenscus, and the inferior colliculus
to kind of help shut off, kind of prevent these
from happening. So... A good way of thinking
about this is, and it's good that we use green,
but I'm going to think about this as water hose,
okay? Plumbing is weird, weird things here, okay?
So this is the water hose. and then actually
it mostly it mostly goes straight doesn't it
see plumbing is weird so you have this and then
let's say you have a faucet okay so you have
a faucet okay you want it you can turn it on
so All through here, I wanna go green. I wanna
go green. Let's just say this is water, okay?
Because these are the signals coming up the brain
stem. And then these kind of areas are the areas
trying to filter this out. And even the cortex
trying to suppress these sounds. If you have
a leak here, or if you're trying to control the
water flow here, but you can't, water is just
going to come out uncontrollably. Okay, and this
is kind of what this is with that endocochlear
potential, where you have this strong electrical
potential in that strong gradient, just to shoot
noises up. But if you don't have the inhibition,
the inhibition could be a couple of different
things. It could be the handle that turns it
on and off, or maybe there's a filter. Maybe
there's a special filter here so that you don't
have the unwanted things of the water like fluoride
or something to get out. But maybe that filter
is bad. You haven't changed it in a while. So
now you're getting all of this fluoride and unwanted
particles out in the water because inhibition
downstream is letting this in. So your filter,
or maybe you even have a filter coming into your
house, an extra filter, which is popular. It's
pretty common now. This filter is bad. The role
of inhibition here is to get rid of these red
marks, which is unwanted, which is no good, okay?
So if you want to think about it, the green are
the ghost signals. So we have glutamate excitation
running this way because that's the direction
of the water flow and this is helping it it's
helping it push it along at faster rates because
that's our default our default is go especially
with sensation perception but then you have inhibit
inhibition things like parv albium interneuron
and somatostatin and basal intestinal peptides
remember that are acting on as a this inhibition
we have these let's say we just have parvalbium
and so forth like this this is kind of wanting
to block so we have inhibition here and here
and some here but we can't based off of the the
context and the capacity of these inhibitions,
we can't naturally control the output, the flow
of the noises. So, sometimes the autistic phenotype
is overwhelmed with this water. Okay, so you
could think of this as the difference between
a water hose outside and a fire hydrant, maybe.
The fire hydrant is a good way of thinking about
Autistic stability for sensory processing. It's
a fire hose of information, Carl Beiseroth says,
and projections. Here, projections. It's a torrent
of information, he calls it. And it's accurate.
Because there's no stop signals here. There is
no stopping here. And each one of these areas
here the olivary, the laminscus here, and then
the inferior colliculus is trying to provide
a little bit of stopping. Because once it hits
the thalamus, especially with this TRM that is
already in a bad state, bad condition, everything
is just going to start to become overwhelming.
So this is very similar to the ear canal. So
we should have built -in inhibition, mainly up
through here though, to help stop, filter out
this stuff. So we're up here and we have a lot
of noise. We have a lot of noise now coming in.
It's just, okay, we'll use green. It's becoming
overwhelming. We have So much to perceive here,
okay? With the auditory cortex, which is here.
And then if we map out, let's just draw a side
view of this, okay? So we have the pons and the
brain stem, kind of the cerebellum. And if your
caliculus is here, okay? It's here. that's what
this is superior colliculus here and then we
have the thalamus medial geniculate the lateral
geniculate i'm just going to make this kind of
so this is the thalamus here okay because i want
to highlight the big thing with listening to
sonnets here So the occipital, the parietal,
the sensory motor here, the prefrontal cortex,
kind of this temporal lobe. Okay, so as noises
start to become overwhelming, so A1 is over here,
okay? It's more occipital. A1 is up here, and
it's very lateral. It's very lateral. So A1 is
up here, and it's trying to... This is where
perception happens, okay? We do not understand
the noises until A1 kind of helps make sense
of it. Like if you hear your favorite song, and
maybe... It takes one second, one or two tones,
and you recognize the song. Versus, oh, what's
that song? What is that song? You're just sitting
there, what song is that? You're trying to, you're
working here in the auditory cortex and other
areas of the cortex. Remember, layers two and
three in the mini -columns will help you get
there. But the thalamus is sending signals up
to those mini -columns to recruit layers two
and three. because layers two and three is where
your experiences live, your subjective experiences
and your intelligence live. Okay, so the big
thing with listening to sonus here with recruiting
the rest of this cortex is going to be massive.
To compensate this overwhelming noise coming
through here into the thalamus and the auditory
cortex, the brain and your sensory processing
will attempt to recruit Distal connections, especially
the medial prefrontal cortex, which is here.
The first time we mentioned this was in the Autism
and Adaptive Responses episode where we parsed
out the medial prefrontal cortex, the ACC, anterior
cingulate cortex, which is a subdivision here,
and the anterior insula, which is about right
here. Very lateral, but also right here. So we
have the dorsal lateral up here. and the orbital
prefrontal cortex right here. Orbital prefrontal
cortex, medial prefrontal cortex is in the middle,
and then this outside surface right here is the
dorsal lateral, okay? Whenever you're trying
to, oh, before I explain the circuitry here with
listening and dissonance, a major role of the
prefrontal cortex, if you're just going to explain
it in one row, it's to shh. The neurosurgeon
said this, Casey Halpern, the role of the prefrontal
cortex is to quiet the rest of these subcortical
areas. It's inactivating the subcortical areas.
That way you can recruit adaptive responses.
So with this listening to solanets and becoming
this sensory overload, Remember, because of this
scenario right here, low inhibition, high excitation
equals sensory overload. The brain is trying
to recruit these more higher order functionings,
this top down control over this situation because
your ears will start to thrive here or throb
and you just can't make sense of it and you can
feel yourself becoming overwhelmed. This is called
signal to noise signal is healthy noise is not
healthy you want to the whole thing we're talking
about over here is quieting the noise filtering
out the noise okay so good bad Okay, so these
brain regions here that are for adaptive responses
and top -down control are recruited and they're
heavily involved and it doesn't matter if you're
autistic or not. You can hook up, put the scalp
fMRI on and measure brain waves even in the typical.
These areas will begin to heighten because it's
trying to provide effort into quieting these
areas right here. it's putting in effort into
quieting this and it becomes difficult even for
the typical. It's kind of compensating here but
because of the autistic phenotype being like
this there's even so much excitation here and
there's not enough parvalbium interneuron especially
with this area right here and the ACC and the
anterior insula. The anterior insula is paying
attention to bodily states. So as you're becoming
overwhelmed, your heart rate will change. And
so is your breathing, your depth and rate of
your breathing. And that is being fed up to the
posterior insula and the anterior insula right
here. And to the ACC. Remember the ACC? It's
measuring conflict monitoring. It's measuring
error detection. It's signaling errors are happening.
I'm becoming overwhelmed. What do I need to do?
I need to do something. And the anterior insula
is being hijacked by the bodily states. And now
the brain states are working overdrive even in
the typical. It's providing a lot of effort to
clear out and free up the sensory processing.
Okay. it becomes so much that emotional circuits
are also being recruited because of right the
brain or the yeah the brain states even and the
bodily states so remember that third role of
the interior insula is evaluating the environment
so it has three main data sources brain body
environment And this thing is becoming overwhelmed.
And so it's hijacking. It's allowing these processes
to be hijacked. So the insula is a good friend
and a very powerful enemy. Just depends on who's
leading the way here. Remember, we talk about
who's leading the way. When we're at adapting
when we're responding well to the environment,
areas like the dorsal lateral and the medial
prefrontal will lead the way. It will orchestrate
the circuitry needed in these lower areas here
instead of vice versa. When we are overwhelmed,
these lower areas like the amygdala here and
this ACC Become hyperactive and they're hyper
connective and these are emotional circuitries
It gets to the point where these are hijacked
and Including here the orbital frontal cortex
is roughly 90 % sensory Even though it's a so
-called prefrontal cortex. Okay, so The orbital
frontal cortex, the amygdala, which is not our
fear center. People get rid of that. That's a
bad misnomer. Fear center is all about correlates.
We are past the times of this brain region equals
this. The amygdala is also involved with positive
things too and motivation, not just fear. So
come on. And then the anterior insula. Whenever
these things are this kind of hijacked, like
this, and the prefrontal becomes shut off, we
leave. Because that's the only option at that
point. Is it an adaptive response? Maybe. Depends
on who you ask. If you would ask, well, looking
back at it, maybe not. But in real time, that
is the option. Because It is impossible to filter
out all of this excessive noise coming up through
here and overwhelming the brain. Overwhelming
the thalamus. And that is listening dissonance.
This is a bad thing and it's uncontrollable.
This is why people will wear the noise canceling
headphones now. And they're screaming kids. And
they're just overwhelmed. Even adults. even like
family gatherings it's like gone that's the option
is gone because you can't control it remember
i i say in the podcast episode sometimes said
1960s Beatles like 1967 and 1968 Beatles Sgt
Pepper's album right here white album right here
they started to experience or experiment with
different noises different instruments that make
noises and things just around the recording studio
they just started to make noise with them and
blend them together at the ends of songs and
the songs would just carry on with all this orchestrated
bizarre music blends and that's what it sounds
like that's what it sounds like in real time
whenever you're out And it's getting loud. You
can't discriminate the sources of the sounds.
You can't. Even if they're lower volume sounds,
but they're multiple. Multiple sources of sounds.
That will hijack these areas as well. Because
at first, you can pay attention. You can pay
attention to the different sources of sounds
coming in. Almost like you can follow along with
different, maybe, conversations. But then...
all of a sudden it comes so fast let me tell
you it comes so fast these things will just split
in and these areas right here will just hijack
you and there's no more dorsolateral prefrontal
cortex or the medial prefrontal cortex the acc
cannot make sense of it so you go and this brings
me to what i want to say most It's not uncommon
that the autistic phenotype children are overwhelmed
and they leave and they're found in bodies of
water. Drowned. It's every week. Whenever the
autistic phenotype is becoming like this, the
worst thing you can do is talk to them. Why are
you sitting there just keep talking to them?
Well, what's the matter? What's the matter? What
do you need? What do you need? Well... I can't
even... I can't even understand it. People that
are involved in autism, even different types
of educators or people that's trying to provide
them therapy and so forth, they don't understand
the autistic phenotype. I don't understand it.
Listening to Sonitz, this... Episode will be
out next week and this will just help maybe follow
along with it. We didn't talk much about the
auditory cortex, but I don't necessarily want
to now, but that's where perceptions happen.