pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Audio-visuomotor processing in the musician's brain: an ERP study on professional violinists and clarinetists - PubMed

  • ️Wed Jan 01 2014

Audio-visuomotor processing in the musician's brain: an ERP study on professional violinists and clarinetists

Alice Mado Proverbio et al. Sci Rep. 2014.

Abstract

The temporal dynamics of brain activation during visual and auditory perception of congruent vs. incongruent musical video clips was investigated in 12 musicians from the Milan Conservatory of music and 12 controls. 368 videos of a clarinetist and a violinist playing the same score with their instruments were presented. The sounds were similar in pitch, intensity, rhythm and duration. To produce an audiovisual discrepancy, in half of the trials, the visual information was incongruent with the soundtrack in pitch. ERPs were recorded from 128 sites. Only in musicians for their own instruments was a N400-like negative deflection elicited due to the incongruent audiovisual information. SwLORETA applied to the N400 response identified the areas mediating multimodal motor processing: the prefrontal cortex, the right superior and middle temporal gyrus, the premotor cortex, the inferior frontal and inferior parietal areas, the EBA, somatosensory cortex, cerebellum and SMA. The data indicate the existence of audiomotor mirror neurons responding to incongruent visual and auditory information, thus suggesting that they may encode multimodal representations of musical gestures and sounds. These systems may underlie the ability to learn how to play a musical instrument.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Grand-average ERP waveforms recorded from the midline fronto-central (FCz), the centro-parietal (Cpz), and the left and right occipito-temporal (PPO9h, PPO10h) sites as a function of group and stimulus audiovisual congruence.

No effect of condition (congruent vs. incongruent) is visible in controls and in musicians for the unfamiliar instrument.

Figure 2
Figure 2. Grand-average ERP waveforms recorded at the left and right anterior frontal sites as a function of group and stimulus congruence.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Mean amplitude (μV) of the incongruent–congruent differential N400 response recorded in musicians and controls at the anterior, central and centroparietal sites.

The only significant task-related effect was found in musicians for their own instrument at frontal sites.

Figure 4
Figure 4. Coronal, sagittal and axial views of the N400 active sources for the processing of musical audiovisual incongruence according to swLORETA analysis during 500–1000 ms post-sound start.

The various colors represent differences in the magnitude of the electromagnetic signal (nAm). The electromagnetic dipoles are shown as arrows and indicate the position, orientation and magnitude of the dipole modeling solution applied to the ERP waveform in the specific time window. L = left; R = right; numbers refer to the displayed brain slice in the MRI imaging plane.

Figure 5
Figure 5. An excerpt of the musical score played by the musicians to create the audiovisual stimuli.
Figure 6
Figure 6. Frames taken from the video clips relative to clarinet and violin instruments.

For the clarinetist, the lateral view allowed vision of the tonehole (above the musician's left thumb); for the violinist, the seated position allowed a clear view of finger on the fingerboard.

Figure 7
Figure 7. Top view of isocolor topographic maps computed by plotting the mean voltages of the N400 difference waves for the 3 groups of participants (musicians with their own instrument, musicians with the other instrument, and control subjects).

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Kohler E. et al. Hearing sounds, understanding actions: action representation in mirror neurons. Science 297, 846–848 (2002). - PubMed
    1. Keysers C. et al. Audiovisual mirror neurons and action recognition. Exp Brain Res. 153, 628–36 (2003). - PubMed
    1. Bangert M. & Altenmüller E. O. Mapping perception to action in piano practice: a longitudinal DC-EEG study. BMC Neurosci. 15, 4:26 (2003). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Janata P. & Grafton S. T. Swinging in the brain: shared neural substrates for behaviors related to sequencing and music. Nat Neurosci. 6, 682–7 (2003). - PubMed
    1. Lahav A., Saltzman E. & Schlaug G. Action representation of sound: audiomotor recognition network while listening to newly acquired actions. J Neurosci. 27, 308–14 (2007). - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms