0000000000737708
AUTHOR
Teppo Särkämö
Musical training predicts cerebello-hippocampal coupling during music listening.
Cerebello-hippocampal interactions occur during accurate spatiotemporal prediction of movements. In the context of music listening, differences in cerebello-hippocampal functional connectivity may result from differences in predictive listening accuracy. Using functional MRI, we studied differences in this network between 18 musicians and 18 nonmusicians while they listened to music. Musicians possess a predictive listening advantage over nonmusicians, facilitated by strengthened coupling between produced and heard sounds through lifelong musical experience. Thus, we hypothesized that musicians would exhibit greater functional connectivity than nonmusicians as a marker of accurate online pr…
Therapeutic role of music listening in stroke rehabilitation.
We performed two parallel interview studies of stroke patients (n= 20) and professional nurses (n= 5) to gain more insight into the therapeutic role of music listening in stroke rehabilitation. Results suggest that music listening can be used to relax, improve mood, and provide both physical and mental activation during the early stages of recovery from stroke. Thus, music listening could provide a useful clinical tool in stroke rehabilitation.
Music and speech listening enhance the recovery of early sensory processing after stroke.
Abstract Our surrounding auditory environment has a dramatic influence on the development of basic auditory and cognitive skills, but little is known about how it influences the recovery of these skills after neural damage. Here, we studied the long-term effects of daily music and speech listening on auditory sensory memory after middle cerebral artery (MCA) stroke. In the acute recovery phase, 60 patients who had middle cerebral artery stroke were randomly assigned to a music listening group, an audio book listening group, or a control group. Auditory sensory memory, as indexed by the magnetic MMN (MMNm) response to changes in sound frequency and duration, was measured 1 week (baseline), 3…
Music and speech prosody: a common rhythm
Disorders of music and speech perception, known as amusia and aphasia, have traditionally been regarded as dissociated deficits based on studies of brain damaged patients. This has been taken as evidence that music and speech are perceived by largely separate and independent networks in the brain. However, recent studies of congenital amusia have broadened this view by showing that the deficit is associated with problems in perceiving speech prosody, especially intonation and emotional prosody. In the present study the association between the perception of music and speech prosody was investigated with healthy Finnish adults (n = 61) using an on-line music perception test including the Scal…
Amusia and Cognitive Deficits after Stroke
We studied the relationship between musical and cognitive deficits by testing middle cerebral arterial (MCA) stroke patients (n= 53) with a shortened version of the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA) and an extensive neuropsychological test battery. Results showed that amusic patients (n= 32) had more severe cognitive deficits, especially in working memory and executive functioning, than did non-amusic patients (n= 21), and the severity of amusia also correlated with attention deficits. These findings thus suggest that domain-general attention, executive, and working memory processes are associated with amusia after stroke.
Beneficial effects of choir singing on cognition and well-being of older adults: Evidence from a cross-sectional study.
Background and objectivesChoir singing has been associated with better mood and quality of life (QOL) in healthy older adults, but little is known about its potential cognitive benefits in aging. In this study, our aim was to compare the subjective (self-reported) and objective (test-based) cognitive functioning of senior choir singers and matched control subjects, coupled with assessment of mood, QOL, and social functioning.Research design and methodsWe performed a cross-sectional questionnaire study in 162 healthy older (age ≥ 60 years) adults (106 choir singers, 56 controls), including measures of cognition, mood, social engagement, QOL, and role of music in daily life. The choir singers…
Music perception and cognition: development, neural basis, and rehabilitative use of music.
Music is a highly versatile form of art and communication that has been an essential part of human society since its early days. Neuroimaging studies indicate that music is a powerful stimulus also for the human brain, engaging not just the auditory cortex but also a vast, bilateral network of temporal, frontal, parietal, cerebellar, and limbic brain areas that govern auditory perception, syntactic and semantic processing, attention and memory, emotion and mood control, and motor skills. Studies of amusia, a severe form of musical impairment, highlight the right temporal and frontal cortices as the core neural substrates for adequate perception and production of music. Many of the basic aud…
Cognitive deficits associated with acquired amusia after stroke: A neuropsychological follow-up study
Recent evidence on amusia suggests that our ability to perceive music might be based on the same neural resources that underlie other higher cognitive functions, such as speech perception and spatial processing. We studied the neural correlates of acquired amusia by performing extensive neuropsychological assessments on 53 stroke patients with a left or right hemisphere middle cerebral artery (MCA) stroke 1 week, 3 months, and 6 months after the stroke. In addition, structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed on all patients 1 week and 6 months post-stroke. Based on their performance on a shortened version of the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA), the patients we…
What makes music memorable? : Relationships between acoustic musical features and music-evoked emotions and memories in older adults
Publisher: Public Library of Science; International audience; Music has a unique capacity to evoke both strong emotions and vivid autobiographical memories. Previous music information retrieval (MIR) studies have shown that the emotional experience of music is influenced by a combination of musical features, including tonal, rhythmic, and loudness features. Here, our aim was to explore the relationship between music-evoked emotions and music-evoked memories and how musical features (derived with MIR) can predict them both. Methods Healthy older adults (N = 113, age ≥ 60 years) participated in a listening task in which they rated a total of 140 song excerpts comprising folk songs and popular…
Music for the Brain Across Life
Music is highly a versatile and multifaceted form of art and communication that has been an essential part of human societies since their early days. During the past 20 years, neuroimaging studies have shown that music is a powerful stimulant also for the brain, engaging not just the auditory cortex but also a vast network of temporal, frontal, parietal, cerebellar, and limbic brain areas that govern auditory perception, syntactic and semantic processing, attention and memory, emotion and mood control, and motor skills. Especially regions in the right temporal and frontal cortices are needed for the accurate perception and production of music as abnormal neural development or acquired damag…
Auditory and Cognitive Deficits Associated with Acquired Amusia after Stroke: A Magnetoencephalography and Neuropsychological Follow-Up Study
Acquired amusia is a common disorder after damage to the middle cerebral artery (MCA) territory. However, its neurocognitive mechanisms, especially the relative contribution of perceptual and cognitive factors, are still unclear. We studied cognitive and auditory processing in the amusic brain by performing neuropsychological testing as well as magnetoencephalography (MEG) measurements of frequency and duration discrimination using magnetic mismatch negativity (MMNm) recordings. Fifty-three patients with a left (n = 24) or right (n = 29) hemisphere MCA stroke (MRI verified) were investigated 1 week, 3 months, and 6 months after the stroke. Amusia was evaluated using the Montreal Battery of …