Review Can Musical Training Influence Brain Connectivity? Evidence from Diffusion Tensor MRI (original) (raw)
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Can Musical Training Influence Brain Connectivity? Evidence from Diffusion Tensor MRI
Brain Sciences, 2014
In recent years, musicians have been increasingly recruited to investigate grey and white matter neuroplasticity induced by skill acquisition. The development of Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DT-MRI) has allowed more detailed investigation of white matter connections within the brain, addressing questions about the effect of musical training on connectivity between specific brain regions. Here, current DT-MRI analysis techniques are discussed and the available evidence from DT-MRI studies into differences in white matter architecture between musicians and non-musicians is reviewed. Collectively, the existing literature tends to support the hypothesis that musical training can induce changes in cross-hemispheric connections, with significant differences frequently reported in various regions of the corpus callosum of musicians compared with non-musicians. However, differences found in intra-hemispheric fibres have not always been replicated, while findings regarding the internal capsule and corticospinal tracts appear to be contradictory. There is also recent evidence to suggest that variances in white matter structure in non-musicians may correlate with their ability to learn musical skills, offering an alternative explanation for the structural differences observed between musicians and non-musicians. Considering the inconsistencies in the OPEN ACCESS Brain Sci. 2014, 4 406 current literature, possible reasons for conflicting results are offered, along with suggestions for future research in this area.
White Matter Plasticity in Dancers and Musicians
2019
This dissertation examined training-related brain plasticity by comparing white matter (WM) structure between dancers and musicians and relating the structural changes to dance and music abilities. We focused on the primary motor pathways, to identify potential structural differences between whole-body dance training and specific-effector music training. To this purpose, highly trained dancers and musicians, matched for years of training, were tested on a novel dance imitation task, melody discrimination, and rhythm reproduction. Participants were scanned using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). WM was analyzed at a whole-brain level in Study 1, using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Study 2 used probabilistic tractography to examine the descending motor pathways from the hand, leg, trunk and head regions. In Study 1, dancers showed increased diffusivity and reduced anisotropy in comparison to musicians in regions including the descending motor pathways, the superior longitudinal fasciculus and the corpus callosum, predominantly in the right hemisphere. Consistent with this, in Study 2, dancers had increased diffusivity and greater volume in all portions of the right descending motor pathways, whereas musicians had increased anisotropy, especially in the right hand and trunk/arm tracts. Importantly, in both studies, DTI metrics were positively related with dance and negatively with melody performance. In Study 2, DTI metrics also were negatively associated with age of training start, indicating a direct relation between the structural changes observed and training. Our findings indicate that different types of long-term training have distinct effects on brain structure. In particular, dance training, which engages the whole body, appears to enhance connectivity among a broad range of cortical regions, possibly by increasing axonal diameter and the heterogeneity of fiber orientation. In contrast, music training seems to increase the coherence and packing of the connections linked to the trained effector(s). This dissertation is novel in comparing brain structure between two groups of highly trained performers and in examining multiple DTI metrics concurrently. Further, in Study 2, we developed a novel methodology to segregate the motor cortex into regions corresponding to four main body parts, which could be used by other researchers interested in motor connectivity.
The effects of musical practice on structural plasticity: The dynamics of grey matter changes
Brain and Cognition, 2014
Intensive training and the acquisition of expertise are known to bring about structural changes in the brain. Musical training is a particularly interesting model. Previous studies have reported structural brain modifications in the auditory, motor and visuospatial areas of musicians compared with nonmusicians. The main goal of the present study was to go one step further, by exploring the dynamic of those structural brain changes related to musical experience. To this end, we conducted a regression study on 44 nonmusicians and amateur musicians with 0-26 years of musical practice of a variety instruments. We sought first to highlight brain areas that increased with the duration of practice and secondly distinguish (thanks to an ANOVA analysis) brain areas that undergo grey matter changes after only limited years of musical practice from those that require longer practice before they exhibit changes. Results revealed that musical training results a greater grey matter volumes in different brain areas for musicians. Changes appear gradually in the left hippocampus and right middle and superior frontal regions, but later also include the right insula and supplementary motor area and left superior temporal, and posterior cingulate areas. Given that all participants had the same age and that we controlled for age and education level, these results cannot be ascribed to normal brain maturation. Instead, they support the notion that musical training could induce dynamic structural changes.
Musical Training Shapes Structural Brain Development Abbreviated title : Musical Brain Development
2000
The human brain has the remarkable capacity to alter in response to environmental demands. Training-induced structural brain changes have been demonstrated in the healthy adult human brain. However, no study has yet directly related structural brain changes to behavioral changes in the developing brain, addressing the question of whether structural brain differences seen in adults (comparing experts with matched controls) are a product of "nature" (via biological brain predispositions) or "nurture" (via early training). Long-term instrumental music training is an intense, multisensory, and motor experience and offers an ideal opportunity to study structural brain plasticity in the developing brain in correlation with behavioral changes induced by training. Here we demonstrate structural brain changes after only 15 months of musical training in early childhood, which were correlated with improvements in musically relevant motor and auditory skills. These findings shed light on brain plasticity and suggest that structural brain differences in adult experts (whether musicians or experts in other areas) are likely due to training-induced brain plasticity.
White-matter structural connectivity predicts short-term melody and rhythm learning in non-musicians
NeuroImage, 2018
Music learning has received increasing attention in the last decades due to the variety of functions and brain plasticity effects involved during its practice. Most previous reports interpreted the differences between music experts and laymen as the result of training. However, recent investigations suggest that these differences are due to a combination of genetic predispositions with the effect of music training. Here, we tested the relationship of the dorsal auditory-motor pathway with individual behavioural differences in short-term music learning. We gathered structural neuroimaging data from 44 healthy non-musicians (28 females) before they performed a rhythm- and a melody-learning task during a single behavioural session, and manually dissected the arcuate fasciculus (AF) in both hemispheres. The macro- and microstructural organization of the AF (i.e., volume and FA) predicted the learning rate and learning speed in the musical tasks, but only in the right hemisphere. Specifi...
Scientific Reports
Our sensory systems provide complementary information about the multimodal objects and events that are the target of perception in everyday life. Professional musicians’ specialization in the auditory domain is reflected in the morphology of their brains, which has distinctive characteristics, particularly in areas related to auditory and audio-motor activity. Here, we combined diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) with a behavioral measure of visually induced gain in pitch discrimination, and we used measures of cortical thickness (CT) correlations to assess how auditory specialization and musical expertise are reflected in the structural architecture of white and grey matter relevant to audiovisual processing. Across all participants (n = 45), we found a correlation (p < 0.001) between reliance on visual cues in pitch discrimination and the fractional anisotropy (FA) in the left inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), a structure connecting visual and auditory brain areas. Group ...
Musical training, neuroplasticity and cognition
Dementia & Neuropsychologia, 2010
The influence of music on the human brain has been recently investigated in numerous studies. Several investigations have shown that structural and functional cerebral neuroplastic processes emerge as a result of long-term musical training, which in turn may produce cognitive differences between musicians and non-musicians. Musicians can be considered ideal cases for studies on brain adaptation, due to their unique and intensive training experiences. This article presents a review of recent findings showing positive effects of musical training on non-musical cognitive abilities, which probably reflect plastic changes in brains of musicians.