Neurobiology of Rhythmic Motor Entrainment

Abstract

Timing is extremely important for movement, and understanding the neurobiological basis of rhythm perception and reproduction can be helpful in addressing motor recovery after brain lesions. In this quest, the science of music might provide interesting hints for better understanding the brain timing mechanism. The report focuses on the neurobiological substrate of sensorimotor transformation of time data, highlighting the power of auditory rhythmic stimuli in guiding motor acts. The cerebellar role of timing is addressed in subjects with cerebellar damage; subsequently, cerebellar timing processing is highlighted through an fMRI study of professional musicians. The two approaches converge to demonstrate that different levels of time processing exist, one conscious and one not, and to support the idea that timing is a distributed function. The hypothesis that unconscious motor responses to auditory rhythmic stimuli can be relevant in guiding motor recovery and modulating music perception is advanced and discussed.

Emergence of rhythm during motor learning

“…This is in line with the idea of dissociation between automatic timing processes subserved by motorrelated areas and cognitively controlled timing processes subserved by prefrontal cortex [7]. Automatic timing processes include performance of a well-learned rhythm [17], control of the acceleration and deceleration of a learned sequential hand movement [18], or synchronous tapping to the beat of a rhythm [19,20] especially as performed by professional musicians [8]. Controlled timing processes include encoding of time duration [21,22], explicit discrimination of time intervals [23], on-line adjustment of the timing of motor or cognitive action [19,24,25], or those in early phases of rhythm learning [26].…”

“…Although several recent studies have examined the properties of rhythm associated with motor performance [6][7][8][9], they were mostly concerned with externally guided rhythms: subject were asked to synchronize movements to an externally presented rhythm or to remember and reproduce the rhythm. However, as in the examples mentioned above, the rhythms of our body movements can emerge spontaneously.…”

Do Preferred Beat Rate and Entrainment to the Beat Have a Common Origin in Movement?

“…MUSICAL beat induction-the perceptual extraction of a regular underlying beat pattern from a temporal sound pattern-is perhaps the most fundamental prerequisite for the emergence of musical behaviour. The process of beat induction has therefore been of great interest to researchers studying the evolutionary and cultural origins of music (Clark, 1999;Cross, 2003;Fitch, 2005;Molinari, Leggio, De Martin, Cerasa, & Thaut, 2003;. The hypothesis that musical beat induction derives from body movement is attractive because the tempo range of optimal musical pulse perception, around 300-900 ms onset-to-onset, is similar to that of locomotion (Fraisse, 1982).…”

Untitled

“…Rhythm is an essential element of motor movement including motor control and output (Molinari, Leggio, De Martin, Cerasa, & Thaut, 2003), since rhythmic auditory cuing facilitates movement by providing a mechanism for planning movements (Thaut et al, 2007).…”