The Neuroscience of Music

The Neuroscience of Music

Main points

• Music is like language– Characterized by rhythmic sequential sounds– Has syntax: “rules” by which a sequence of notes is ordered– Conveys information

Main points

• Music is unlike language– Set of sounds is arguably smaller– Information content and rate is vastly greater in language– Musicianship is not nearly as prevalent: not everyone is a

musician• Although only a small number of people are actually “amusic”

– Language is rarely used by groups • compare People's Mic to a symphony

Main points

• Music is universal e.g.:

– Neolithic flutes produce similar musical intervals

• Thus music hasn’t changed much in 35,000 years!

– All moms sing to their babies

– Very young children can move with rhythm

What has Cognitive Neuroscience figured out about music:

– Relationship between language and music?

– Are musician’s brains different?

What has Cognitive Neuroscience figured out about music:

• Evidence from neuropsychology:– Aphasia is a speech production and comprehension problem– Amusia is a music production and comprehension problem

– Aphasia and Amusia are doubly-dissociable

• Aphasics can sing in tune but the lyrics are distorted

• Amusics speak normally (including prosody)

This suggests that music and language are processed by different brain regions

What has Cognitive Neuroscience figured out about music:

• Evidence from experimental psychology:– Non-musicians exhibit “left-ear advantage” for melody and

“right-ear advantage” for speech comprehension

– Musicians exhibit “right-ear advantage” for both melody and speech

This suggests that music and language are processed by different brain regions in non-musicians but overlapping regions in musicians

Functional imaging of Language and Music

• Evidence from functional Neuroimaging• Listening to music and listening to speech engage

overlapping brain regions particularly:• Auditory cortex• dorsal pre-motor cortex (also for production)

Why do you think these would be overlapping?

Functional imaging of Language and Music

• Listening to music and listening to speech engage overlapping brain regions particularly:

• Auditory cortex• dorsal pre-motor cortex (also for production)

Why do you think these would be overlapping?

…because speech and music are both auditory!

• Listening to music and listening to speech engage overlapping brain regions particularly:

• Auditory cortex• dorsal pre-motor cortex (also for production)

• However, one general observation is that music processes tend to engage more right-hemisphere structures than left– Note this is generally the opposite of language processes,

which tend to be strongly left-lateralized

Functional imaging of Language and Music

How does musical training affect the brain?

• Skilled musicians are unique in that they– Start at a young age– Spend lots of time on practice

– Does this lead to a difference in brain functional anatomy?

Musicians differ from non-musicians

• Ohinishi et al. 2001 compared musicians to non-musicians in a passive (music) listening task

Musicians

Non- Musicians

Musicians differ from non-musicians

• Ohinishi et al. 2001 compared musicians to non-musicians in a passive (music) listening task

Musicians - more activity on the left side

Non-musicians - more activity on the right side

Musicians – additional activity in premotor area near Broca’s

• To see differences more clearly they subtract one image from another:

– Differences are in Planum Temporale and Dorsolateral Prefronatal Cortex – especially on the left side

Musicians differ from non-musicians

• To see differences more clearly they subtract one image from another:

– Differences are in or near speech production and comprehension regions

Musicians differ from non-musicians

Broca’s area

Wernicke’s Area

Perfect Pitch

• Absolute (or “perfect”) pitch is the ability to name a pitch class (a “note”) without any reference

– Not same as “relative pitch”

• Very rare

• More common in:– East asians (tonal language)– Early music training– Autism spectrum disorder and

synesthesia

Perfect Pitch

• Psyche Loui et al. (2010) – showed that people with perfect pitch have denser white-matter connection

between superior and middle temporal gyri

AP1 AP2 Controls

Compare these tracts

Tone Deafness

• What about people who are really bad at music?– Congenital Amusia – difficulty producing and perceiving melody despite mostly normal

speech

Normal connections between auditory and frontal cortex

Sparse connections between auditory and frontal cortex in amusia

Summary: the connection between speech and music

• In all listeners, music seems to engage the systems in the right hemisphere that are the counterparts of language-specific regions in the right hemisphere

Summary: the connection between speech and music

• In all listeners, music seems to engage the systems in the right hemisphere that are the counterparts of language-specific regions in the right hemisphere

• In very broad terms, musical training seems to push music processes onto language structures– Left lateralization for musicians– Left posterior temporal gyrus (in or near Wernicke’s)– Left lateral frontal cortex (in or near Broca’s)