Selective Neurophysiologic Responses to Music in Instrumentalists with Different Listening Biographies.

To appropriately adapt to constant sensory stimulation, neurons in the auditory system are tuned to various acoustic characteristics, such as center frequencies, frequency modulations, and their combinations, particularly those combinations that carry species specific communicative functions. The present study asks whether such tunings extend beyond acoustic and communicative functions to auditory self-relevance and expertise. More specifically, we examined the role of the listening biography – an individual’s long term experience with a particular type of auditory input – on perceptual-neural plasticity. Two groups of expert instrumentalists (violinists and flutists) listened to matched musical excerpts played on the two instruments (J.S. Bach Partitas for solo violin and flute) while their cerebral hemodynamic responses were measured using fMRI. Our experimental design allowed for a comprehensive investigation of the neurophysiology (cerebral hemodynamic responses as measured by fMRI) of auditory expertise (i.e., when violinists listened to violin music and when flutists listened to flute music) and non-expertise (i.e., when subjects listened to music played on the other instrument). We found an extensive cerebral network of expertise, which implicates increased sensitivity to musical syntax (BA 44), timbre (auditory association cortex), and sound-motor interactions (precentral gyrus) when listening to music played on the instrument of expertise (the instrument for which subjects had a unique listening biography). These findings highlight auditory self relevance and expertise as a mechanism of perceptual-neural plasticity, and implicate neural tuning that includes and extends beyond acoustic and communication-relevant structures.

Investigators

Lauren Mlsna
Patrick Wong

Collaborators

Lisa Margulis (University of Arkansas)
Todd Parrish (Northwestern University)

Brain activation revealed by the Instrument of Expertise vs. Non-Expertise Instrument contrast (based on a random effect analysis) showing activation in left BA 44/6, Precentral Gyrus, and STG. Bar graphs show activation for each instrument for each subject group. Error bars indicate standard error of the mean. Activation is projected onto a T1-weighted volume averaged across all subjects; color bar indicates strength of activation in t value.