Cognitive flexibility modulates maturation and music‐training‐related changes in neural sound discrimination

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that musicians show superior neural sound discrimination when compared to non-musicians, and that these changes emerge with accumulation of training. Our aim was to investigate whether individual differences in executive functions predict training-related changes in neural sound discrimination. We measured event-related potentials induced by sound changes coupled with tests for executive functions in musically trained and non-trained children aged 9-11 years and 13-15 years. High performance in a set-shifting task, indexing cognitive flexibility, was linked to enhanced maturation of neural sound discrimination in both musically trained and non-trained children. Specifically, well-performing musically trained children already showed large mismatch negativity (MMN) responses at a young age as well as at an older age, indicating accurate sound discrimination. In contrast, the musically trained low-performing children still showed an increase in MMN amplitude with age, suggesting that they were behind their high-performing peers in the development of sound discrimination. In the non-trained group, in turn, only the high-performing children showed evidence of an age-related increase in MMN amplitude, and the low-performing children showed a small MMN with no age-related change. These latter results suggest an advantage in MMN development also for high-performing non-trained individuals. For the P3a amplitude, there was an age-related increase only in the children who performed well in the set-shifting task, irrespective of music training, indicating enhanced attention-related processes in these children. Thus, the current study provides the first evidence that, in children, cognitive flexibility may influence age-related and training-related plasticity of neural sound discrimination.

Neural correlates of enhanced executive functions: is less more?

“…Here, we reviewed evidence in favor of this neural efficiency hypothesis in the domain of executive functions from studies that have linked reduction in frontal and parietal activity with experience‐induced enhancement of inhibition, set shifting, and working memory, as well as the maturation of these functions. Our preliminary fMRI results from musically trained adolescents and young adults are consistent with the notion that musical expertise is also associated with the efficiency of a right‐lateralized frontoparietal network activated by the executive function tasks in which the music group outperformed the control group in our previous behavioral study …”

“…Recently, a subset of the subjects ( n = 49, 26 musically trained, 30 females) in our longitudinal study, aged 16–21 years at the time, participated in a cross‐sectional fMRI experiment investigating the neural underpinnings of the enhanced inhibition and set‐shifting in the music group observed in our previous study …”

“…The experiment consists of four naming, four inhibition, and eight set‐shifting task blocks based on the Nespy test employed in our previous study, presented in two runs in a random order. On a given trial, the participant is shown a white or black arrow at the center of the screen pointing to the left or right and is asked to respond with a button press according to the instructions shown on the screen before each block.…”

“…Recently, a subset of the subjects (n = 49, 26 musically trained, 30 females) in our longitudinal study, aged 16-21 years at the time, participated in a crosssectional fMRI experiment investigating the neural underpinnings of the enhanced inhibition and setshifting in the music group observed in our previous study. 29 The experiment consists of four naming, four inhibition, and eight set-shifting task blocks based on the Nespy test employed in our previous study, 29 presented in two runs in a random order. On a given trial, the participant is shown a white or black arrow at the center of the screen pointing to the left or right and is asked to respond with a button press according to the instructions shown on the screen before each block.…”

“…The untrained participants have no formal musical training, have attended standard elementary school, and are matched in age and socioeconomic status (parental income and education) to the music group. The first measurements in the longitudinal study focused on auditory event‐related potentials (ERPs), the mismatch negativity in particular, while the more recent measurements also included behavioral, ERP, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measures of executive functions . In one of our studies, we administered the inhibition and set‐shifting subtests from a standardized test battery of executive functions to 90 of the children and adolescents in our sample, then aged 9–15 years.…”