Effekte von lang- und kurzzeitigem musikalischen Training auf Verhaltens- und neuronale Korrelate auditorischer Vorstellung
Final Report Abstract
Musical training and music neuroscience have emerged as an excellent framework for the investigation of various aspects of human cognition such as perception and memory, of the integration of sensory modalities during complex skill learning and performance, and of traininginduced brain plasticity. During my two-year fellowship at the Montreal Neurological Institute, we successfully conducted three functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies to investigate behavioral and neuronal correlates of auditory perception and mental imagery and the effects of short- and long-term training on these processes. Additionally, I was involved in several collaborations on the topics of auditory learning and cognition and multisensory integration in several collaboration projects using MEG and TMS, and we successfully acquired external funding for an interdisciplinary project on early auditory processing using simultaneous EEG/MEG. In the first fMRI study we demonstrated overlapping and unique areas related to perception, imagery and episodic memory of music, increased fronto-temporal functional connectivity during imagery compared to perception, and differences in the recruitment of frontal and temporal areas related to interindividual variability in the vividness of mental auditory imagery. Based on these findings, we then investigated training effects on auditory imagery and perception in the second and third studies, in a combined cross-sectional and longitudinal training study design. In musicians compared to nonmusicians we found increased activity in the supplementary motor cortex during mental imagery, indicating long-term effects of training on an area that is involved in motor planning and is part of the imagery network. In the longitudinal study, nonmusicians took part in a six-week piano training protocol during which they learned to play familiar melodies. Both during perception and during imagery of these melodies, they recruited prefrontal and parietal areas more strongly after compared to before training. These results indicate that different parts of the motor network are affected by long-compared to short-term training, and that the neural networks for imagery and for perception are similarly malleable by training. Additionally, the training protocol allowed us to identify activity in several areas before training, including right auditory cortex and left midprefrontal cortex, as predictive for subsequent learning success in the six-week training. This shows that preexisting inter-individual differences influence the potential for learning and plasticity, and our ability to differentiate these predictors from training effects pertains to the debate about nature versus nurture. We also collected data on auditory processing in the brainstem using EEG and structural MRI data in these participants, which will allow us to relate behavioral and functional changes on different levels of processing to structural changes in the brain within the same dataset. In future projects I plan to focus on the investigation of mechanisms underlying training-related plasticity, inter-individual predictors for the potential for functional and behavioral changes and plasticity across the human live-span. The stay at the MNI proved invaluable for gaining practical experience with new experimental methods (MRI, TMS), for building leadership skills through cosupervision of students, and for expanding my theoretical knowledge in cognitive neuroscience.
Publications
- (2011) Musical training modulates encoding of higher-order regularities in the auditory cortex. Eur J Neurosci, 34(3): p. 524-9
Herholz, S.C., Boh, B., and Pantev, C.
- (2011) Plasticity of the human auditory cortex related to musical training. Neurosci Biobehav Rev, 35(10): p. 2140-54
Pantev, C. and Herholz, S.C.
- (2012) Musical training effects on statistical learning of melodies: an MEG study. Neuropsychologia, 50(2): p. 341-9
Paraskevopoulos, E., Kuchenbuch, A., Herholz, S.C., and Pantev, C.
- (2012) Neuronal correlates of perception, imagery, and memory for familiar tunes. J Cogn Neurosci, 24(6): p. 1382-97
Herholz, S.C., Halpern, A.R., and Zatorre, R.J.
