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Brain Structures Differ between Musicians and Non-Musicians

Brain Structures Differ between Musicians and Non-Musicians . Presented by Andrew Park. Introduction . P rofessional musicians (ex. pianists) skilled in performing complex physical and mental operations playing a musical instrument requires…

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Brain Structures Differ between Musicians and Non-Musicians

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  1. Brain Structures Differ between Musicians and Non-Musicians Presented by Andrew Park

  2. Introduction • Professional musicians (ex. pianists) • skilled in performing complex physical and mental operations • playing a musical instrument requires… • practice extensively from childhood throughout their entire careers.

  3. Introduction • Knowledge Deficit • neural correlates of musical skills • association between musical skills and particular brain regions or characteristic brain anatomy • Purpose of this study Explore whether structural brain differences exist between musicians and non-musicians

  4. Methods • 20 male professional musicians (age: 23.05yrs) • 20 male amateur musicians (age: 25.95yrs) • 40 male non-musicians (age: 26.92yrs) • fMRI images • Voxel-Based Morphometry (VBM), a fully automatic technique for computational analysis of differences in local gray matter volume • Voxel-by-voxel t-tests

  5. Results Significant positive correlation between musician status and increase in gray matter volume: • Primary motor cortex • Somatosensory areas • Premotor areas • Inferior temporal gyrus

  6. Results • Precentralgyrus • Heschl’sgyrus also called Transverse temporal gyrus • Superior parietal cortex

  7. Results • Left cerebellum • The cluster in the cerebellar region corresponds to the area of the cerebellar finger-hand representation.

  8. Discussion • A pattern of differences in the gray matter distribution between professional musicians, amateur musicians, and non-musicians that involve motor, auditory, and visual regions. • Strong association between gray matter differences, musician status and practice intensity. • Structural differences in musicians are due to adaptations to long-term musical training.

  9. Strengths and limitations • Organized • Clear explanations for fMRI brain images • A correlational study • Examined only one gender • Structural differences may be attributable to innate predisposition

  10. Savant syndrome • a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill. • Innate predisposition > long-term training ??? • Determine the relative contribution of predisposition and practice. Matt Savage, a 13-year-old with autism, is also a jazz pianist

  11. Questions?

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