Cortical Plasticity Induced by Short-Term Multimodal Musical Rhythm Training

Abstract

Performing music is a multimodal experience involving the visual, auditory, and somatosensory modalities as well as the motor system. Therefore, musical training is an excellent model to study multimodal brain plasticity. Indeed, we have previously shown that short-term piano practice increase the magnetoencephalographic (MEG) response to melodic material in novice players. Here we investigate the impact of piano training using a rhythmic-focused exercise on responses to rhythmic musical material. Musical training with non musicians was conducted over a period of two weeks. One group (sensorimotor-auditory, SA) learned to play a piano sequence with a distinct musical rhythm, another group (auditory, A) listened to, and evaluated the rhythmic accuracy of the performances of the SA-group. Training-induced cortical plasticity was evaluated using MEG, comparing the mismatch negativity (MMN) in response to occasional rhythmic deviants in a repeating rhythm pattern before and after training. The SA-group showed a significantly greater enlargement of MMN and P2 to deviants after training compared to the A- group. The training-induced increase of the rhythm MMN was bilaterally expressed in contrast to our previous finding where the MMN for deviants in the pitch domain showed a larger right than left increase. The results indicate that when auditory experience is strictly controlled during training, involvement of the sensorimotor system and perhaps increased attentional recources that are needed in producing rhythms lead to more robust plastic changes in the auditory cortex compared to when rhythms are simply attended to in the auditory domain in the absence of motor production.

Differential processing of melodic, rhythmic and simple tone deviations in musicians -an MEG study

“…The advancement of the last tone by 100 ms was, likewise, very detectable. The temporal change was much higher than the perceptual threshold of 50 ms which we found for the same stimuli in a group of musical novices in an earlier study (Lappe et al, 2011).…”

Tic-reducing effects of music in patients with Tourette’s syndrome: Self-reported and objective analysis

“…The influence of musical practice on brain functions and brain plasticity in healthy nonmusician subjects has been demonstrated in previous short-term musical-training studies [86][87][88]. The results of the present study indicated that musical practice influences cortical functions in Tourette subjects and that the practice of well-trained music leads to frequency reduction.…”

Multisensory integration and neuroplasticity in the human cerebral cortex

“…In this context, it is hypothesized that the unisensory representation that is trained lowers the neural threshold needed for the activation of these structures [106] and, as a result, the "downstream" multisensory structures receive enhanced input. This finding is further supported by studies indicating plastic effects due to multisensory training within unisensory processes, such as the studies on the effects of multisensory piano training on auditory processing by Lappe et al [62,63] Multisensory training modifies the unisensory structures, allowing for enhanced unisensory processing, which in turn send their output to the higher-order multisensory regions. B: Multisensory training modifies the feed-forward and feedback connections between the unisensory structures, allowing for better communication between the different modalities.…”

“…playing a musical instrument) and can be easily compared with controls. Short-term music training can be used in a longitudinal setting to compare behavior, brain function and structure before and after an applied training protocol [62][63][64]. This approach allows causal inference regarding the origin of the neuroplastic changes.…”

“…Better understanding of the role of multisensory trainings that are used to study neuroplasticity, ranging from lab-based audio-visual-motor paradigms (e.g., [63]) to naturalistic approaches using leisure activities (e.g., [125]), creates challenges for the integration of findings across studies, because trainings and effects are difficult to compare directly. In order to identify task-or stimulus-specific and general aspects of multisensory trainings that drive behavioral improvements and neuroplastic effects, we will need new approaches for cross-study integration.…”