Brain Activation during Anticipation of Sound Sequences

Music consists of sound sequences that require integration over time. As we become familiar with music, associations between notes, melodies, and entire symphonic movements become stronger and more complex. These associations can become so tight that, for example, hearing the end of one album track...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of neuroscience 2009-02, Vol.29 (8), p.2477-2485
Main Authors: Leaver, Amber M, Van Lare, Jennifer, Zielinski, Brandon, Halpern, Andrea R, Rauschecker, Josef P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic Stimulation
Adult
Auditory Pathways - blood supply
Auditory Pathways - physiology
Auditory Perception - physiology
Brain - blood supply
Brain - physiology
Brain Mapping
Female
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - methods
Learning - physiology
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Mental Recall - physiology
Music
Oxygen - blood
Sound
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:Music consists of sound sequences that require integration over time. As we become familiar with music, associations between notes, melodies, and entire symphonic movements become stronger and more complex. These associations can become so tight that, for example, hearing the end of one album track can elicit a robust image of the upcoming track while anticipating it in total silence. Here, we study this predictive "anticipatory imagery" at various stages throughout learning and investigate activity changes in corresponding neural structures using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Anticipatory imagery (in silence) for highly familiar naturalistic music was accompanied by pronounced activity in rostral prefrontal cortex (PFC) and premotor areas. Examining changes in the neural bases of anticipatory imagery during two stages of learning conditional associations between simple melodies, however, demonstrates the importance of fronto-striatal connections, consistent with a role of the basal ganglia in "training" frontal cortex (Pasupathy and Miller, 2005). Another striking change in neural resources during learning was a shift between caudal PFC earlier to rostral PFC later in learning. Our findings regarding musical anticipation and sound sequence learning are highly compatible with studies of motor sequence learning, suggesting common predictive mechanisms in both domains.
ISSN:0270-6474
1529-2401
DOI:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4921-08.2009