The Neuroscience of Music

1. The Neuroscience of Music

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

3. 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

4. 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

5. What has Cognitive Neuroscience figured out about music: • Relationship between language and music? • Are musician’s brains different?

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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?

9. 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!

10. 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) • 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

11. 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?

12. Musicians differ from non-musicians • Ohinishi et al. 2001 compared musicians to non-musicians in a passive (music) listening task Non- Musicians Musicians

13. 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

14. Musicians differ from non-musicians • 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

15. 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 Broca’s area Wernicke’s Area

16. 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

17. Perfect Pitch • Psyche Loui et al. (2010) • showed that people with perfect pitch have denser white-matter connection between superior and middle temporal gyri Compare these tracts AP1 AP2 Controls

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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)