Understanding functional brain reorganization for naturalistic piano playing in novice pianists.

Learning to play the piano is a unique complex task, integrating multiple sensory modalities and higher order cognitive functions. Longitudinal neuroimaging studies on adult novice musicians show training-related functional changes in music perception tasks. The reorganization of brain activity while actually playing an instrument was studied only on a very short time frame of a single fMRI session, and longer interventions have not yet been performed. Thus, our aim was to investigate the dynamic complexity of functional brain reorganization while playing the piano within the first half year of musical training. We scanned 24 novice keyboard learners (female, 18-23 years old) using fMRI while they played increasingly complex musical pieces after 1, 6, 13, and 26 weeks of training. Playing music evoked responses bilaterally in the auditory, inferior frontal, and supplementary motor areas, and the left sensorimotor cortex. The effect of training over time, however, invoked widespread changes encompassing the right sensorimotor cortex, cerebellum, superior parietal cortex, anterior insula and hippocampus, among others. As the training progressed, the activation of these regions decreased while playing music. Post hoc analysis revealed region-specific time-courses for independent auditory and motor regions of interest. These results suggest that while the primary sensory, motor, and frontal regions are associated with playing music, the training decreases the involvement of higher order cognitive control and integrative regions, and basal ganglia. Moreover, training might affect distinct brain regions in different ways, providing evidence in favor of the dynamic nature of brain plasticity.

Music training affects listeners' processing of different types of accentuation information: Evidence from ERPs.

Previous studies found that prolonged musical training can promote language processing, but few studies have examined whether and how musical training affects the processing of accentuation in spoken language. In this study, a vocabulary detection task was conducted, with Chinese single sentences as materials, to investigate how musicians and non-musicians process corrective accent and information accent in the sentence-middle and sentence-final positions. In the sentence-middle position, results of the cluster-based permutation t-tests showed significant differences in the 574-714 ms time window for the control group. In the sentence-final position, the cluster-based permutation t-tests revealed significant differences in the 612-810 ms time window for the music group and in the 616-812 ms time window for the control group. These significant positive effects were induced by the processing of information accent relative to that of corrective accent. These results suggest that both groups were able to distinguish corrective accent from information accent, but they processed the two accent types differently in the sentence-middle position. These findings show that musical training has a cross-domain effect on spoken language processing and that the accent position also affects its processing.

Enhanced neural mechanisms of set shifting in musically trained adolescents and young adults: converging fMRI, EEG, and behavioral evidence.

Musically trained individuals have been found to outperform untrained peers in various tasks for executive functions. Here, we present longitudinal behavioral results and cross-sectional, event-related potential (ERP), and fMRI results on the maturation of executive functions in musically trained and untrained children and adolescents. The results indicate that in school-age, the musically trained children performed faster in a test for set shifting, but by late adolescence, these group differences had virtually disappeared. However, in the fMRI experiment, the musically trained adolescents showed less activity in frontal, parietal, and occipital areas of the dorsal attention network and the cerebellum during the set-shifting task than untrained peers. Also, the P3b responses of musically trained participants to incongruent target stimuli in a task for set shifting showed a more posterior scalp distribution than control group participants' responses. Together these results suggest that the musician advantage in executive functions is more pronounced at an earlier age than in late adolescence. However, it is still reflected as more efficient recruitment of neural resources in set-shifting tasks, and distinct scalp topography of ERPs related to updating and working memory after childhood.

Musical training alters neural processing of tones and vowels in classic Chinese poems.

Long-term rigorous musical training promotes various aspects of spoken language processing. However, it is unclear whether musical training provides an advantage in recognizing segmental and suprasegmental information of spoken language. We used vowel and tone violations in spoken unfamiliar seven-character quatrains and a rhyming judgment task to investigate the effects of musical training on tone and vowel processing by recording ERPs. Compared with non-musicians, musicians were more accurate and responded faster to incorrect than correct tones. Musicians showed larger P2 components in their ERPs than non-musicians during both tone and vowel processing, revealing increased focused attention on sounds. Both groups showed enhanced N400 and LPC for incorrect vowels (vs. correct vowels) but non-musicians showed an additional P2 effect for vowel violations. Moreover, both groups showed enhanced LPC for incorrect tones (vs. correct tones) but only non-musicians showed an additional N400 effect for tone violations. These results indicate that vowel/tone processing is less effortful for musicians (vs. non-musicians). Our study suggests that long-term musical training facilitates speech tone and vowel processing in a tonal language environment by increasing the attentional focus on speech and reducing demands for detecting incorrect vowels and integration costs for tone changes.

MEG Intersubject Phase Locking of Stimulus-Driven Activity during Naturalistic Speech Listening Correlates with Musical Training.

Musical training is associated with increased structural and functional connectivity between auditory sensory areas and higher-order brain networks involved in speech and motor processing. Whether such changed connectivity patterns facilitate the cortical propagation of speech information in musicians remains poorly understood. We here used magnetoencephalography (MEG) source imaging and a novel seed-based intersubject phase-locking approach to investigate the effects of musical training on the interregional synchronization of stimulus-driven neural responses during listening to naturalistic continuous speech presented in silence. MEG data were obtained from 20 young human subjects (both sexes) with different degrees of musical training. Our data show robust bilateral patterns of stimulus-driven interregional phase synchronization between auditory cortex and frontotemporal brain regions previously associated with speech processing. Stimulus-driven phase locking was maximal in the delta band, but was also observed in the theta and alpha bands. The individual duration of musical training was positively associated with the magnitude of stimulus-driven alpha-band phase locking between auditory cortex and parts of the dorsal and ventral auditory processing streams. These findings provide evidence for a positive relationship between musical training and the propagation of speech-related information between auditory sensory areas and higher-order processing networks, even when speech is presented in silence. We suggest that the increased synchronization of higher-order cortical regions to auditory cortex may contribute to the previously described musician advantage in processing speech in background noise.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Musical training has been associated with widespread structural and functional brain plasticity. It has been suggested that these changes benefit the production and perception of music but can also translate to other domains of auditory processing, such as speech. We developed a new magnetoencephalography intersubject analysis approach to study the cortical synchronization of stimulus-driven neural responses during the perception of continuous natural speech and its relationship to individual musical training. Our results provide evidence that musical training is associated with higher synchronization of stimulus-driven activity between brain regions involved in early auditory sensory and higher-order processing. We suggest that the increased synchronized propagation of speech information may contribute to the previously described musician advantage in processing speech in background noise.

Experience of Playing a Musical Instrument and Lifetime Change in General Cognitive Ability: Evidence From the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936.

We tested whether experience of playing a musical instrument was associated with lifetime change in cognitive ability. Participants were 366 older adults from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 who had completed general cognitive-ability assessments at ages 11 and 70 and reported their lifetime experience of playing a musical instrument at age 82. This sample included 117 participants with musical-instrument experience, mostly at a beginner or an intermediate level. There was a small, statistically significant positive association between experience of playing a musical instrument and change in general cognitive ability between ages 11 and 70; specifically, individuals with more musical-instrument experience were likely to show greater gains in general cognitive ability. This association was reduced but remained statistically significant following adjustment for covariates (childhood and adulthood socioeconomic status, years of education, and disease history). These findings suggest that playing a musical instrument is associated with a long-term cognitive advantage.

The Microstructural Plasticity of the Arcuate Fasciculus Undergirds Improved Speech in Noise Perception in Musicians.

Musical training is thought to be related to improved language skills, for example, understanding speech in background noise. Although studies have found that musicians and nonmusicians differed in morphology of bilateral arcuate fasciculus (AF), none has associated such white matter features with speech-in-noise (SIN) perception. Here, we tested both SIN and the diffusivity of bilateral AF segments in musicians and nonmusicians using diffusion tensor imaging. Compared with nonmusicians, musicians had higher fractional anisotropy (FA) in the right direct AF and lower radial diffusivity in the left anterior AF, which correlated with SIN performance. The FA-based laterality index showed stronger right lateralization of the direct AF and stronger left lateralization of the posterior AF in musicians than nonmusicians, with the posterior AF laterality predicting SIN accuracy. Furthermore, hemodynamic activity in right superior temporal gyrus obtained during a SIN task played a full mediation role in explaining the contribution of the right direct AF diffusivity on SIN performance, which therefore links training-related white matter plasticity, brain hemodynamics, and speech perception ability. Our findings provide direct evidence that differential microstructural plasticity of bilateral AF segments may serve as a neural foundation of the cross-domain transfer effect of musical experience to speech perception amid competing noise.

The impact of early musical training on striatal functional connectivity.

Evidence from language, visual and sensorimotor learning suggests that training early in life is more effective. The present work explores the hypothesis that learning during sensitive periods involves distinct brain networks in addition to those involved when learning later in life. Expert pianists were tested who started their musical training early (<7 years of age; n = 21) or late (n = 15), but were matched for total lifetime practice. Motor timing expertise was assessed using a musical scale playing task. Brain activity at rest was measured using fMRI and compared with a control group of nonmusicians (n = 17). Functional connectivity from seeds in the striatum revealed a striatal-cortical-sensorimotor network that was observed only in the early-onset group. In this network, higher connectivity correlated with greater motor timing expertise, which resulted from early/late group differences in motor timing expertise. By contrast, networks that differentiated musicians and nonmusicians, namely a striatal-occipital-frontal-cerebellar network in which connectivity was higher in musicians, tended to not show differences between early and late musicians and not be correlated with motor timing expertise. These results parcel musical sensorimotor neuroplasticity into a set of musicianship-related networks and a distinct set of predominantly early-onset networks. The findings lend support to the possibility that we can learn skills more easily early in development because during sensitive periods we recruit distinct brain networks that are no longer implicated in learning later in life.

Faster maturation of selective attention in musically trained children and adolescents: Converging behavioral and event-related potential evidence.

Previous work suggests that musical training in childhood is associated with enhanced executive functions. However, it is unknown whether this advantage extends to selective attention-another central aspect of executive control. We recorded a well-established event-related potential (ERP) marker of distraction, the P3a, during an audio-visual task to investigate the maturation of selective attention in musically trained children and adolescents aged 10-17 years and a control group of untrained peers. The task required categorization of visual stimuli, while a sequence of standard sounds and distracting novel sounds were presented in the background. The music group outperformed the control group in the categorization task and the younger children in the music group showed a smaller P3a to the distracting novel sounds than their peers in the control group. Also, a negative response elicited by the novel sounds in the N1/MMN time range (~150-200 ms) was smaller in the music group. These results indicate that the music group was less easily distracted by the task-irrelevant sound stimulation and gated the neural processing of the novel sounds more efficiently than the control group. Furthermore, we replicated our previous finding that, relative to the control group, the musically trained children and adolescents performed faster in standardized tests for inhibition and set shifting. These results provide novel converging behavioral and electrophysiological evidence from a cross-modal paradigm for accelerated maturation of selective attention in musically trained children and adolescents and corroborate the association between musical training and enhanced inhibition and set shifting.

Why Is an Early Start of Training Related to Musical Skills in Adulthood? A Genetically Informative Study.

Experts in domains such as music or sports often start training early. It has been suggested that this may reflect a sensitive period in childhood for skill acquisition. However, it could be that familial factors (e.g., genetics) contribute to the association. Here, we examined the effect of age of onset of musical training on musical aptitude and achievement in professional musicians (n = 310) and twins (n = 7,786). In line with previous literature, results showed that an earlier age of onset was associated with higher aptitude and achievement in both samples. After we adjusted for lifetime practice hours, age of onset was associated only with aptitude (p < .001; achievement: p > .14). Twin analyses showed that the association with aptitude was fully explained by familial factors. Thus, these findings provide little support for a sensitive period for music but highlight that familiar factors play an important role for associations between age of onset of training and skills in adulthood.

Music Playing and Interhemispheric Communication: Older Professional Musicians Outperform Age-Matched Non-Musicians in Fingertip Cross-Localization Test.

OBJECTIVE: Numerous investigations have documented that age-related changes in the integrity of the corpus callosum are associated with age-related decline in the interhemispheric transfer of information. Conversely, there is accumulating evidence for more efficient white matter organization of the corpus callosum in individuals with extensive musical training. However, the relationship between making music and accuracy in interhemispheric transfer remains poorly explored. METHODS: To test the hypothesis that musicians show enhanced functional connectivity between the two hemispheres, 65 professional musicians (aged 56-90 years) and 65 age- and sex-matched non-musicians performed the fingertip cross-localization test. In this task, subjects must respond to a tactile stimulus presented to one hand using the ipsilateral (intra-hemispheric test) or contralateral (inter-hemispheric test) hand. Because the transfer of information from one hemisphere to another may imply a loss of accuracy, the value of the difference between the intrahemispheric and interhemispheric tests can be utilized as a reliable measure of the effectiveness of hemispheric interactions. RESULTS: Older professional musicians show significantly greater accuracy in tactile interhemispheric transfer than non-musicians who suffer from age-related decline. CONCLUSIONS: Musicians have more efficient interhemispheric communication than age-matched non-musicians. This finding is in keeping with studies showing that individuals with extensive musical training have a larger corpus callosum. The results are discussed in relation to relevant data suggesting that music positively influences aging brain plasticity.

Musical training enhances temporal adaptation of auditory-motor synchronization.

To coordinate their actions successfully with auditory events, individuals must be able to adapt their behaviour flexibly to environmental changes. Previous work has shown that musical training enhances the flexibility to synchronize behaviour with a wide range of stimulus periods. The current experiment investigated whether musical training enhances temporal adaptation to period perturbations as listeners tapped with a metronome, and whether this enhancement is specific to individuals' Spontaneous Production Rates (SPRs; individuals' natural uncued rates). Both musicians and nonmusicians adapted more quickly to period perturbations that slowed down than to those that sped up. Importantly, musicians adapted more quickly to all period perturbations than nonmusicians. Fits of a damped harmonic oscillator model to the tapping measures confirmed musicians' faster adaptation and greater responsiveness to period perturbations. These results suggest that, even when the task is tailored to individual SPRs, musical training increases the flexibility with which individuals can adapt to changes in their environment during auditory-motor tasks.

Stream segregation revisited: Dynamic listening and influences of emotional context on stream perception and attention.

A classical experiment of auditory stream segregation is revisited, reconceptualising perceptual ambiguity in terms of affordances and musical engagement. Specifically, three experiments are reported that investigate how listeners' perception of auditory sequences change dynamically depending on emotional context. The experiments show that listeners adapt their attention to higher or lower pitched streams (Experiments 1 and 2) and the degree of auditory stream integration or segregation (Experiment 3) in accordance with the presented emotional context. Participants with and without formal musical training show this influence, although to differing degrees (Experiment 2). Contributing evidence to the literature on interactions between emotion and cognition, these experiments demonstrate how emotion is an intrinsic part of music perception and not merely a product of the listening experience.

Low-income parents' perceptions of the importance of a musical training programme for their children: a qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Despite clear evidence for the effectiveness of musical training in promoting psychological well-being among underprivileged children, parents' perceptions of the importance of such training for their children remains unknown. METHODS: Of the parents of 171 underprivileged preschool children in Hong Kong who had participated in a free musical training programme, 25 were randomly selected and invited to participate in individual semi-structured interviews. Colaizzi's descriptive phenomenological data analysis strategy was followed for analysing the data. RESULTS: The results showed that parents identified numerous benefits of the programme for their child, including increased happiness, improved confidence, positive behavioural changes, and enhanced parent-child relationships. At the beginning of the programme, parents tended to disregard the usefulness of musical training but gradually came to recognise its importance for their children's psychological and social well-being. However, children were limited by their parents' financial constraints from participating in musical training after the free programme ended. CONCLUSIONS: These findings imply that existing policy may overlook the psychosocial needs of underprivileged children and suggest that more resources should be allocated to facilitate the continuity and sustainability of such a free programme for this vulnerable population. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02762786 , registered on May 5, 2016.

Musical training sharpens and bonds ears and tongue to hear speech better.

The idea that musical training improves speech perception in challenging listening environments is appealing and of clinical importance, yet the mechanisms of any such musician advantage are not well specified. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we found that musicians outperformed nonmusicians in identifying syllables at varying signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs), which was associated with stronger activation of the left inferior frontal and right auditory regions in musicians compared with nonmusicians. Moreover, musicians showed greater specificity of phoneme representations in bilateral auditory and speech motor regions (e.g., premotor cortex) at higher SNRs and in the left speech motor regions at lower SNRs, as determined by multivoxel pattern analysis. Musical training also enhanced the intrahemispheric and interhemispheric functional connectivity between auditory and speech motor regions. Our findings suggest that improved speech in noise perception in musicians relies on stronger recruitment of, finer phonological representations in, and stronger functional connectivity between auditory and frontal speech motor cortices in both hemispheres, regions involved in bottom-up spectrotemporal analyses and top-down articulatory prediction and sensorimotor integration, respectively.

Plasticity in auditory categorization is supported by differential engagement of the auditory-linguistic network.

To construct our perceptual world, the brain categorizes variable sensory cues into behaviorally-relevant groupings. Categorical representations are apparent within a distributed fronto-temporo-parietal brain network but how this neural circuitry is shaped by experience remains undefined. Here, we asked whether speech and music categories might be formed within different auditory-linguistic brain regions depending on listeners' auditory expertise. We recorded EEG in highly skilled (musicians) vs. less experienced (nonmusicians) perceivers as they rapidly categorized speech and musical sounds. Musicians showed perceptual enhancements across domains, yet source EEG data revealed a double dissociation in the neurobiological mechanisms supporting categorization between groups. Whereas musicians coded categories in primary auditory cortex (PAC), nonmusicians recruited non-auditory regions (e.g., inferior frontal gyrus, IFG) to generate category-level information. Functional connectivity confirmed nonmusicians' increased left IFG involvement reflects stronger routing of signal from PAC directed to IFG, presumably because sensory coding is insufficient to construct categories in less experienced listeners. Our findings establish auditory experience modulates specific engagement and inter-regional communication in the auditory-linguistic network supporting categorical perception. Whereas early canonical PAC representations are sufficient to generate categories in highly trained ears, less experienced perceivers broadcast information downstream to higher-order linguistic brain areas (IFG) to construct abstract sound labels.

Decoding emotions in expressive music performances: A multi-lab replication and extension study.

With over 560 citations reported on Google Scholar by April 2018, a publication by Juslin and Gabrielsson (1996) presented evidence supporting performers' abilities to communicate, with high accuracy, their intended emotional expressions in music to listeners. Though there have been related studies published on this topic, there has yet to be a direct replication of this paper. A replication is warranted given the paper's influence in the field and the implications of its results. The present experiment joins the recent replication effort by producing a five-lab replication using the original methodology. Expressive performances of seven emotions (e.g. happy, sad, angry, etc.) by professional musicians were recorded using the same three melodies from the original study. Participants (N = 319) were presented with recordings and rated how well each emotion matched the emotional quality using a 0-10 scale. The same instruments from the original study (i.e. violin, voice, and flute) were used, with the addition of piano. In an effort to increase the accessibility of the experiment and allow for a more ecologically-valid environment, the recordings were presented using an internet-based survey platform. As an extension to the original study, this experiment investigated how musicality, emotional intelligence, and emotional contagion might explain individual differences in the decoding process. Results found overall high decoding accuracy (57%) when using emotion ratings aggregated for the sample of participants, similar to the method of analysis from the original study. However, when decoding accuracy was scored for each participant individually the average accuracy was much lower (31%). Unlike in the original study, the voice was found to be the most expressive instrument. Generalised Linear Mixed Effects Regression modelling revealed that musical training and emotional engagement with music positively influences emotion decoding accuracy.

Effectiveness of a musical training programme in promoting happiness and quality of life of underprivileged preschool children.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To test the effectiveness of a musical training programme in promoting happiness and quality of life of Hong Kong Chinese underprivileged preschool children. BACKGROUND: The impact of poverty and income disparity on the psychological well-being of children remains a profound global public health concern. There is substantial evidence that poverty and income disparity have many negative impacts on children's psychological well-being, adversely affecting their quality of life. METHODS: A nonequivalent, quasi-experimental, two-group, pretest and post-test, between-subjects design was conducted with 171 Hong Kong Chinese underprivileged preschool children (aged 3-6 years). Participants (n = 100) in the experimental group attended a weekly 1-hr musical training lesson for 12 weeks conducted by the Music Children Foundation. Participants (n = 71) in the wait list control group received the same training after all data had been collected. Data collection for both groups was conducted at baseline and 12-week follow-up. The measured outcomes were happiness level and quality of life. A TREND checklist was completed. RESULTS: Participants in the experimental group reported significantly higher levels of happiness (p = .002) and quality of life (p = .44) than those in the wait list control group. CONCLUSIONS: The present study indicates the effectiveness of a musical training programme in promoting happiness and quality of life of Hong Kong Chinese underprivileged preschool children. It also demonstrated the feasibility of implementing the programme in a community context. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: This study aids to inform nurses the beneficial effect of the musical training programme in improving underprivileged children's psychological well-being and quality of life. Indeed, community nurses may act as facilitators to promote the musical training programme to underprivileged children. The involvement of community nurses may greatly enhance the sustainability of the programme, thus making it to be a routine health promotion activity.

Musical genre-dependent behavioural and EEG signatures of action planning. A comparison between classical and jazz pianists.

It is well established that musical training induces sensorimotor plasticity. However, there are remarkable differences in how musicians train for proficient stage performance. The present EEG study outlines for the first time clear-cut neurobiological differences between classical and jazz musicians at high and low levels of action planning, revealing genre-specific cognitive strategies adopted in production. Pianists imitated chord progressions without sound that were manipulated in terms of harmony and context length to assess high-level planning of sequence-structure, and in terms of the manner of playing to assess low-level parameter specification of single acts. Jazz pianists revised incongruent harmonies faster as revealed by an earlier reprogramming negativity and beta power decrease, hence neutralising response costs, albeit at the expense of a higher number of manner errors. Classical pianists in turn experienced more conflict during incongruent harmony, as shown by theta power increase, but were more ready to implement the required manner of playing, as indicated by higher accuracy and beta power decrease. These findings demonstrate that specific demands and action focus of training lead to differential weighting of hierarchical action planning. This suggests different enduring markers impressed in the brain when a musician practices one or the other style.

Musical training induces functional and structural auditory-motor network plasticity in young adults.

Playing music requires a strong coupling of perception and action mediated by multimodal integration of brain regions, which can be described as network connections measured by anatomical and functional correlations between regions. However, the structural and functional connectivities within and between the auditory and sensorimotor networks after long-term musical training remain largely uninvestigated. Here, we compared the structural connectivity (SC) and resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) within and between the two networks in 29 novice healthy young adults before and after musical training (piano) with those of another 27 novice participants who were evaluated longitudinally but with no intervention. In addition, a correlation analysis was performed between the changes in FC or SC with practice time in the training group. As expected, participants in the training group showed increased FC within the sensorimotor network and increased FC and SC of the auditory-motor network after musical training. Interestingly, we further found that the changes in FC within the sensorimotor network and SC of the auditory-motor network were positively correlated with practice time. Our results indicate that musical training could induce enhanced local interaction and global integration between musical performance-related regions, which provides insights into the mechanism of brain plasticity in young adults.