Less Effort, Better Results: How Does Music Act on Prefrontal Cortex in Older Adults during Verbal Encoding? An fNIRS Study

Abstract

Several neuroimaging studies of cognitive aging revealed deficits in episodic memory abilities as a result of prefrontal cortex (PFC) limitations. Improving episodic memory performance despite PFC deficits is thus a critical issue in aging research. Listening to music stimulates cognitive performance in several non-purely musical activities (e.g., language and memory). Thus, music could represent a rich and helpful source during verbal encoding and therefore help subsequent retrieval. Furthermore, such benefit could be reflected in less demand of PFC, which is known to be crucial for encoding processes. This study aimed to investigate whether music may improve episodic memory in older adults while decreasing the PFC activity. Sixteen healthy older adults (μ = 64.5 years) encoded lists of words presented with or without a musical background while their dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity was monitored using a eight-channel continuous-wave near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) system (Oxymon Mk III, Artinis, The Netherlands). Behavioral results indicated a better source-memory performance for words encoded with music compared to words encoded with silence (p < 0.05). Functional NIRS data revealed bilateral decrease of oxyhemoglobin values in the music encoding condition compared to the silence condition (p < 0.05), suggesting that music modulates the activity of the DLPFC during encoding in a less-demanding direction. Taken together, our results indicate that music can help older adults in memory performances by decreasing their PFC activity. These findings open new perspectives about music as tool for episodic memory rehabilitation on special populations with memory deficits due to frontal lobe damage such as Alzheimer’s patients.

Preparation for mental effort recruits Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex: an fNIRS investigation

“…Previous fNIRS studies have investigated DLPFC contribution to several processes cognitive, such as word-encoding in a memory task (Ferreri et al, 2014), inhibitory control in drug users (Roberts & Montgomery, 2015), dual motor and cognitive task-performance (Mandrick et al, 2013). Relevant to the current results, two studies targeted hemodynamic responses in DLPFC in effortful tasks, specifically testing the effect of varying mental load in a working memory task (Molteni et al, 2012), and comparing laboratory measures of load (executive function task) with real-life effort (operating a flight-simulator Causse et al, 2017).…”

“…After data collection, one participant was excluded from further analysis due to technical failure. Sample size was determined based on previous studies using fNIRS to investigate cognitive function (Causse, Chua, Peysakhovich, Del Campo, & Matton, 2017; Ferreri et al, 2014; Nakahachi et al, 2008).…”

Neurovascular Coupling by Functional Near Infra-Red Spectroscopy and Sport-Related Concussion in Retired Rugby Players: The UK Rugby Health Project

“…However, this was from examining task-orientated changes, where the general cerebral hemodynamic perturbations could induce responses for both groups. Ferreri et al (2014) suggested that the greatest cerebral hemodynamic changes happen from task orientated protocols, and thus we used the ''Where's Wally'' paradigm for this function. The literature further bolsters that it can be more than generic changes as Akın and Bilensoy (2006) reported HHb increases within protocols that induce metabolic perturbations.…”

Uso de la música para modular la memoria: Una revisión sistemática

“…Los resultados comportamentales indicaron que la música de fondo facilitó la codificación y aumentó el recuerdo de palabras, mientras que los datos de neuroimagen mostraron una menor activación general de la corteza prefrontal durante la tarea que tenía a la música como contexto, lo que indicaría una menor exigencia neurocognitiva para codificar y evocar material verbal. Resultados similares fueron hallados en adultos mayores (Bottiroli, Rosi, Russo, Vecchi, & Cavallini, 2014;Ferreri, Bigand, Perrey, Muthalib, Bard, & Bugaiska, 2014) y niños (Hallam, Price, & Katsarou, 2002).…”