Auditory Evoked Responses in Musicians during Passive Vowel Listening Are Modulated by Functional Connectivity between Bilateral Auditory-related Brain Regions

Currently, there is striking evidence showing that professional musical training can substantially alter the response properties of auditory-related cortical fields. Such plastic changes have previously been shown not only to abet the processing of musical sounds, but likewise spectral and temporal...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of cognitive neuroscience 2014-12, Vol.26 (12), p.2750-2761
Main Authors: Kühnis, Jürg, Elmer, Stefan, Jäncke, Lutz
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic Stimulation
Adolescent
Adult
Analysis of Variance
Auditory Pathways - physiology
Brain
Brain - physiology
Brain Mapping
Cognition - physiology
Correlation analysis
Electroencephalography
Evoked Potentials, Auditory - physiology
Female
Functional Laterality - physiology
Humans
Male
Music
Musicians & conductors
Neurosciences
Pitch Perception - physiology
Professional Competence
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Currently, there is striking evidence showing that professional musical training can substantially alter the response properties of auditory-related cortical fields. Such plastic changes have previously been shown not only to abet the processing of musical sounds, but likewise spectral and temporal aspects of speech. Therefore, here we used the EEG technique and measured a sample of musicians and nonmusicians while the participants were passively exposed to artificial vowels in the context of an oddball paradigm. Thereby, we evaluated whether increased intracerebral functional connectivity between bilateral auditory-related brain regions may promote sensory specialization in musicians, as reflected by altered cortical N1 and P2 responses. This assumption builds on the reasoning that sensory specialization is dependent, at least in part, on the amount of synchronization between the two auditory-related cortices. Results clearly revealed that auditory-evoked N1 responses were shaped by musical expertise. In addition, in line with our reasoning musicians showed an overall increased intracerebral functional connectivity (as indexed by lagged phase synchronization) in theta, alpha, and beta bands. Finally, within-group correlative analyses indicated a relationship between intracerebral beta band connectivity and cortical N1 responses, however only within the musicians' group. Taken together, we provide first electrophysiological evidence for a relationship between musical expertise, auditory-evoked brain responses, and intracerebral functional connectivity among auditory-related brain regions.
ISSN:0898-929X
1530-8898
DOI:10.1162/jocn_a_00674