Operatic voices engage the default mode network in professional opera singers.

Extensive research with musicians has shown that instrumental musical training can have a profound impact on how acoustic features are processed in the brain. However, less is known about the influence of singing training on neural activity during voice perception, particularly in response to salient acoustic features, such as the vocal vibrato in operatic singing. To address this gap, the present study employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain responses in trained opera singers and musically untrained controls listening to recordings of opera singers performing in two distinct styles: a full operatic voice with vibrato, and a straight voice without vibrato.

Choir singing is associated with enhanced structural connectivity across the adult lifespan.

The global ageing of populations calls for effective, ecologically valid methods to support brain health across adult life. Previous evidence suggests that music can promote white matter (WM) microstructure and grey matter (GM) volume while supporting auditory and cognitive functioning and emotional well-being as well as counteracting age-related cognitive decline. Adding a social component to music training, choir singing is a popular leisure activity among older adults, but a systematic account of its potential to support healthy brain structure, especially with regard to ageing, is currently missing.

When direction matters: Neural correlates of interlimb coordination of rhythm and beat.

In a previous experiment, we found evidence for a bodily hierarchy governing interlimb coordination of rhythm and beat, using five effectors: 1) Left foot, 2) Right foot, 3) Left hand, 4) Right hand and 5) Voice. The hierarchy implies that, during simultaneous rhythm and beat performance and using combinations of two of these effectors, executing the task by performing the rhythm with an effector that has a higher number than the beat effector is significantly easier than vice versa. To investigate the neural underpinnings of this proposed bodily hierarchy, we here scanned 46 professional musicians using fMRI as they performed a rhythmic pattern with one effector while keeping the beat with another.

Differential effects of ageing on the neural processing of speech and singing production.

Background: Understanding healthy brain ageing has become vital as populations are ageing rapidly and age-related brain diseases are becoming more common. In normal brain ageing, speech processing undergoes functional reorganisation involving reductions of hemispheric asymmetry and overactivation in the prefrontal regions. However, little is known about how these changes generalise to other vocal production, such as singing, and how they are affected by associated cognitive demands.

Extensive Sensorimotor Training Predetermines Central Pain Changes During the Development of Prolonged Muscle Pain.

Repetitive movements (RM) are a main risk factor for musculoskeletal pain, which is partly explained by the overloading of musculoskeletal structures. However, RM may also drive brain plasticity, leading to maladaptive changes in sensorimotor areas and altered pain processing. This study aimed to understand whether individuals performing extensive RM (musicians) exhibit altered brain processing to prolonged experimental muscle pain.

Extensive sensorimotor training enhances nociceptive cortical responses in healthy individuals.

Background: Prolonged and repeated sensorimotor training is a crucial driver for promoting use-dependent plasticity, but also a main risk factor for developing musculoskeletal pain syndromes, yet the neural underpinnings that link repetitive movements to abnormal pain processing are unknown.

Methods: Twenty healthy musicians, one of the best in vivo models to study use-dependent plasticity, and 20 healthy non-musicians were recruited. Perceptual thresholds, reaction times (RTs) and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded using nociceptive intra-epidermal and non-nociceptive transcutaneous electrical stimulation.

Neuroanatomical correlates of speech and singing production in chronic post-stroke aphasia.

A classical observation in neurology is that aphasic stroke patients with impairments in speech production can nonetheless sing the same utterances. This preserved ability suggests a distinctive neural architecture for singing that could contribute to speech recovery. However, to date, these structural correlates remain unknown.

Imagine, Sing, Play- Combined Mental, Vocal and Physical Practice Improves Musical Performance.

Classical musicians face a high demand for flawless and expressive performance, leading to highly intensified practice activity. Whereas the advantage of using mental strategies is well documented in sports research, few studies have explored the efficacy of mental imagery and overt singing on musical instrumental learning. In this study, 50 classically trained trumpet students performed short unfamiliar pieces.

Functional connectivity in human auditory networks and the origins of variation in the transmission of musical systems.

Music producers, whether original composers or performers, vary in their ability to acquire and faithfully transmit music. This form of variation may serve as a mechanism for the emergence of new traits in musical systems. In this study, we aim to investigate whether individual differences in the social learning and transmission of music relate to intrinsic neural dynamics of auditory processing systems.

Experience-dependent neuroplasticity in trained musicians modulates the effects of chronic pain on insula-based networks - A resting-state fMRI study.

Recent resting-state fMRI studies associated extensive musical training with increased insula-based connectivity in large-scale networks involved in salience, emotion, and higher-order cognitive processes. Similar changes have also been found in chronic pain patients, suggesting that both types of experiences can have comparable effects on insula circuitries. Based on these observations, the current study asked the question whether, and if so in what way, different forms of experience-dependent neuroplasticity may interact.

Intermittent theta burst stimulation over right somatosensory larynx cortex enhances vocal pitch-regulation in nonsingers.

While the significance of auditory cortical regions for the development and maintenance of speech motor coordination is well established, the contribution of somatosensory brain areas to learned vocalizations such as singing is less well understood. To address these mechanisms, we applied intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS), a facilitatory repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) protocol, over right somatosensory larynx cortex (S1) and a nonvocal dorsal S1 control area in participants without singing experience. A pitch-matching singing task was performed before and after iTBS to assess corresponding effects on vocal pitch regulation.

Insula-based networks in professional musicians: Evidence for increased functional connectivity during resting state fMRI.

Despite considerable research on experience-dependent neuroplasticity in professional musicians, detailed understanding of an involvement of the insula is only now beginning to emerge. We investigated the effects of musical training on intrinsic insula-based connectivity in professional classical musicians relative to nonmusicians using resting-state functional MRI. Following a tripartite scheme of insula subdivisions, coactivation profiles were analyzed for the posterior, ventral anterior, and dorsal anterior insula in both hemispheres.

Experience-dependent modulation of right anterior insula and sensorimotor regions as a function of noise-masked auditory feedback in singers and nonsingers.

Previous studies on vocal motor production in singing suggest that the right anterior insula (AI) plays a role in experience-dependent modulation of feedback integration. Specifically, when somatosensory input was reduced via anesthesia of the vocal fold mucosa, right AI activity was down regulated in trained singers. In the current fMRI study, we examined how masking of auditory feedback affects pitch-matching accuracy and corresponding brain activity in the same participants.

Voxel-based morphometry in opera singers: Increased gray-matter volume in right somatosensory and auditory cortices.

In contrast to instrumental musicians, professional singers do not train on a specific instrument but perfect a motor system that has already been extensively trained during speech motor development. Previous functional imaging studies suggest that experience with singing is associated with enhanced somatosensory-based vocal motor control. However, experience-dependent structural plasticity in vocal musicians has rarely been studied.

Evidence for Enhanced Interoceptive Accuracy in Professional Musicians.

Interoception is defined as the perceptual activity involved in the processing of internal bodily signals. While the ability of internal perception is considered a relatively stable trait, recent data suggest that learning to integrate multisensory information can modulate it. Making music is a uniquely rich multisensory experience that has shown to alter motor, sensory, and multimodal representations in the brain of musicians.

Music in Research and Rehabilitation of Disorders of Consciousness: Psychological and Neurophysiological Foundations.

According to a prevailing view, the visual system works by dissecting stimuli into primitives, whereas the auditory system processes simple and complex stimuli with their corresponding features in parallel. This makes musical stimulation particularly suitable for patients with disorders of consciousness (DoC), because the processing pathways related to complex stimulus features can be preserved even when those related to simple features are no longer available. An additional factor speaking in favor of musical stimulation in DoC is the low efficiency of visual stimulation due to prevalent maladies of vision or gaze fixation in DoC patients.

Pain sensitivity and tactile spatial acuity are altered in healthy musicians as in chronic pain patients.

Extensive training of repetitive and highly skilled movements, as it occurs in professional classical musicians, may lead to changes in tactile sensitivity and corresponding cortical reorganization of somatosensory cortices. It is also known that professional musicians frequently experience musculoskeletal pain and pain-related symptoms during their careers. The present study aimed at understanding the complex interaction between chronic pain and music training with respect to somatosensory processing.

Experience-dependent modulation of feedback integration during singing: role of the right anterior insula.

Somatosensation plays an important role in the motor control of vocal functions, yet its neural correlate and relation to vocal learning is not well understood. We used fMRI in 17 trained singers and 12 nonsingers to study the effects of vocal-fold anesthesia on the vocal-motor singing network as a function of singing expertise. Tasks required participants to sing musical target intervals under normal conditions and after anesthesia.