scholarly journals Partially Overlapping Brain Networks for Singing and Cello Playing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Segado ◽  
Avrum Hollinger ◽  
Joseph Thibodeau ◽  
Virginia Penhune ◽  
Robert J. Zatorre
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Brain Networks ◽  
Superior Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Functional Brain ◽  
Vocal Apparatus ◽  
Functional Brain Networks ◽  
Auditory Cortices

1AbstractThis research uses an MR-Compatible cello to compare functional brain activation during singing and cello playing within the same individuals to determine the extent to which arbitrary auditory-motor associations, like those required to play the cello, co-opt functional brain networks that evolved for singing. Musical instrument playing and singing both require highly specific associations between sounds and movements. However, vocal motor control is an evolutionarily old human trait and the auditory-motor associations used for singing are also used for speech and nonspeech vocalizations. This sets it apart from the arbitrary auditory-motor associations required to play musical instruments. The pitch range of the cello is similar to that of the human voice, but cello playing is completely independent of the vocal apparatus and can therefore be used to dissociate the auditory-vocal network from that of the auditory-motor network. While in the MR-Scanner, 11 expert cellists listened to and subsequently produced individual tones either by singing or cello playing. All participants were able to sing and play the target tones in tune (within 50Cents). We found that brain activity during cello playing directly overlaps with brain activity during singing in many areas within the auditory-vocal network. These include primary motor, dorsal pre-motor, and supplementary motor cortices, the primary and periprimary auditory cortices within the superior temporal gyrus including Heschl’s gyrus, anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and intraparietal sulcus, and cerebellum but, notably, exclude the periaqueductal grey and basal ganglia. Second, we found that activity within the overlapping areas is positively correlated with, and therefore likely contributing to, both singing and playing in tune determined with performance measures. Third, we found that activity in auditory areas is functionally connected with activity in dorsal motor and pre-motor areas, and that the connectivity between them is positively correlated with good performance on this task. This functional connectivity suggests that the brain areas are working together to contribute to task performance and not just coincidently active. Last, our findings showed that cello playing may directly co-opt vocal areas (including larynx area of motor cortex), especially if musical training begins before age 7.

scholarly journals Brain Resilience: The Effect of White Matter Disease on Brain Networks in Cognitively Normal Older Adults

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 918-918
Author(s):  
Blake Neyland ◽  
Christina Hugenschmidt ◽  
Samuel Lockhart ◽  
Laura Baker ◽  
Suzanne Craft ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
White Matter ◽  
White Matter Hyperintensities ◽  
Brain Networks ◽  
Network Connectivity ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Functional Brain ◽  
Mobility Function ◽  
Functional Brain Networks ◽  
Brain Resilience

Abstract Brain pathologies are increasingly understood to confer mobility risk, but the malleability of functional brain networks may be a mechanism for mobility reserve. In particular, white matter hyperintensities (WMH) are strongly associated with mobility and alter functional network connectivity. To assess the potential role of brain networks as a mechanism of mobility reserve, 116 participants with MRI from the Brain Networks and Mobility Function (B-NET) were categorized into 4 groups based on median splits of SPPB scores and WMH burden: Expected Healthy (EH: low WMH, SPPB>10, N=45), Expected Impaired (EI: high WMH, SPPB10, N=24), Unexpected Impaired (EI: low WMH, SPPB<10, N=10) and Unexpected Unhealthy (UH: low WMH, SPPB<10, N=37). Functional brain networks were calculated using graph theory methods and white matter hyperintensities were quantified with the Lesion Segmentation Toolbox (LST) in SPM12. Somatomotor cortex community structure (SMC-CS) was similar between UH and EH with both having higher consistency than EI and UI. However, UH displayed a unique increase in second-order connections between the motor cortex and the anterior cingulate. It is possible that this increase in connections is a signal of higher reserve or resilience in UH participants and may indicate a mechanism of compensation in regards to mobility function and advanced WMH burden. These data suggest functional brain networks may be a mechanism for mobility resilience in older adults at mobility risk due to WMH burden.

scholarly journals Individual differences in intrinsic brain connectivity predict decision strategy

2014 ◽  
Vol 112 (8) ◽  
pp. 1838-1848 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Anne Barnes ◽  
Kevin M. Anderson ◽  
Mark Plitt ◽  
Alex Martin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Brain Networks ◽  
Decision Strategy ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Motion Direction ◽  
Functional Brain ◽  
Spontaneous Brain Activity ◽  
Functional Brain Networks

When humans are provided with ample time to make a decision, individual differences in strategy emerge. Using an adaptation of a well-studied decision making paradigm, motion direction discrimination, we probed the neural basis of individual differences in strategy. We tested whether strategies emerged from moment-to-moment reconfiguration of functional brain networks involved in decision making with task-evoked functional MRI (fMRI) and whether intrinsic properties of functional brain networks, measured at rest with functional connectivity MRI (fcMRI), were associated with strategy use. We found that human participants reliably selected one of two strategies across 2 days of task performance, either continuously accumulating evidence or waiting for task difficulty to decrease. Individual differences in decision strategy were predicted both by the degree of task-evoked activation of decision-related brain regions and by the strength of pretask correlated spontaneous brain activity. These results suggest that spontaneous brain activity constrains strategy selection on perceptual decisions.

scholarly journals Spontaneous Activity in Primary Visual Cortex Relates to Visual Creativity

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yibo Wang ◽  
Junchao Li ◽  
Zengjian Wang ◽  
Bishan Liang ◽  
Bingqing Jiao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Spontaneous Activity ◽  
Resting State ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Brain Networks ◽  
Critical Time ◽  
Functional Brain ◽  
Time Points ◽  
Functional Brain Networks ◽  
The Brain

Cognitive and neural processes underlying visual creativity have attracted substantial attention. The current research uses a critical time point analysis (CTPA) to examine how spontaneous activity in the primary visual area (PVA) is related to visual creativity. We acquired the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data of 16 participants at the resting state and during performing a visual creative synthesis task. According to the CTPA, we then classified spontaneous activity in the PVA into critical time points (CTPs), which reflect the most useful and important functional meaning of the entire resting-state condition, and the remaining time points (RTPs). We constructed functional brain networks based on the brain activity at two different time points and then subsequently based on the brain activity at the task state in a separate manner. We explore the relationship between resting-state and task-fMRI (T-fMRI) functional brain networks. Our results found that: (1) the pattern of spontaneous activity in the PVA may associate with mental imagery, which plays an important role in visual creativity; (2) in comparison with the RTPs-based brain network, the CTP-network showed an increase in global efficiency and a decrease in local efficiency; (3) the regional integrated properties of the CTP-network could predict the integrated properties of the creative-network while the RTP-network could not. Thus, our findings indicated that spontaneous activity in the PVA at CTPs was associated with a visual creative task-evoked brain response. Our findings may provide an insight into how the visual cortex is related to visual creativity.

scholarly journals Functional Brain Networks Underlying Evidence Integration and Delusions in Schizophrenia

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie M Lavigne ◽  
Mahesh Menon ◽  
Todd S Woodward
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Brain Networks ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Functional Brain ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
Functional Brain Networks ◽  
Evidence Integration

Abstract Integrating evidence that contradicts a belief is a fundamental aspect of belief revision and is closely linked to delusions in schizophrenia. In a previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study on healthy individuals, we identified functional brain networks underlying evidence integration as visual attention network (VsAN; dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, insula, occipital regions), default-mode network (DMN), and cognitive evaluation network (CEN; orbitofrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, parietal cortex). In the current clinical fMRI study, we compared network-based activity during evidence integration between healthy controls (n = 41), nondelusional (n = 37), and delusional (n = 33) patients with schizophrenia, and related this activity to cognitive processing involved in evidence integration measured outside the scanner. Task-induced coordinated activation was measured using group-constrained principal component analysis for fMRI. Increased VsAN activation, reduced DMN deactivation, and reduced CEN activation were observed for schizophrenia, with this pattern being most pronounced for the delusional group. Importantly, poor evidence integration comprehensively measured outside the scanner was significantly associated with increased VsAN activation and reduced DMN deactivation when processing confirmatory evidence, and with reduced CEN activation when processing disconfirmatory evidence. This is the first comprehensive study of the functional brain networks associated with evidence integration in schizophrenia and highlights how an imbalance of functional brain networks responding to confirmatory and disconfirmatory evidence may underlie delusions in schizophrenia.

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