Improvising at Rest: Differentiating Jazz and Classical Music Training with Resting State Functional Connectivity

Abstract

Jazz improvisation offers a model for creative cognition, as it involves the real-time creation of a novel, information-rich product. Previous research has shown that when musicians improvise, they recruit regions in the Default Mode Network (DMN) and Executive Control Network (ECN). Here, we ask whether these findings from task-fMRI studies might extend to intrinsic differences in resting state functional connectivity. We compared Improvising musicians, Classical musicians, and Minimally Musically Trained (MMT) controls in seed-based functional connectivity and network analyses in resting state functional MRI. We also examined the functional correlates of behavioral performance in musical improvisation and divergent thinking. Seed-based analysis consistently showed higher connectivity in ventral DMN (vDMN) and bilateral ECN in both groups of musically trained individuals as compared to MMT controls, with additional group differences in primary visual network, precuneus network, and posterior salience network. In particular, primary visual network connectivity to DMN and ECN was highest in Improvisational musicians, whereas within-network connectivity of vDMN and precuneus network was higher in both Improvisational and Classical musicians than in MMT controls; in contrast, connectivity between posterior salience network and superior parietal lobule was highest in Classical musicians. Furthermore, graph-theoretical analysis indicated heightened betweenness centrality, clustering, and local efficiency in Classical musicians. Taken together, results suggest that heightened functional connectivity among musicians can be explained by higher within-network connectivity (more tight-knit cortical networks) in Classical musicians, as opposed to more disperse, globally-connected cortical networks in Improvisational musicians. Highlights• Music training is associated with higher resting state connectivity • Higher connectivity in Improvisational musicians from visual network to ECN and DMN • Classical musicians show higher vDMN and Precuneus within-network connectivity • Improvisation and divergent thinking performance correlate with similar connectivity patterns

Spatiospectral brain networks reflective of improvisational experience

“…Leveraging the high temporal resolution of EEG (Rosen et al, 2020;Zabelina & Ganis, 2018;Marek & Dosenbach, 2018), and through our focus on network connectivity guided by fMRI findings, (Belden et al, 2020;Beaty et al, 2018b;Pinho et al, 2014), we asked what networked neural processes, if any, may underlie how improvisers perceive and process chords differently, given their training to think about harmony categorically (Goldman et al, 2020). We took into account activity that manifests as average EEG band power across a network as well as connectivity within or between large-scale cortical networks (Cohen & D'Esposito, 2016).…”

“…Given however, that our results are based on connectivity between brain regions rather than amplitude at certain regions, we think what we observe may be most consistent with changes in network organization and/or function that may be caused by intense training in musical improvisation. Results from graph-analyses based on fMRI (Belden et al, 2020) and EEG (N=4; Wan et al (2014)) point to greater global network integration for improvisers as opposed to a more densely connected local organization for musicians with greater training in classical music. These findings in turn are consistent with the idea that improvisers may, through training, become very efficient at flexibly engaging and balancing a variety of mental processes with substrates in distributed brain regions (de Manzano & Ullén, 2012) related to executive control and accessing long-term/working memory in realtime (Lopata et al, 2017;Belden et al, 2020) without the necessity of conscious mediation (Limb & Braun, 2008;Liu et al, 2012).…”

“…Very recent work has focused on studying connectivity between large-scale cortical networks with Belden et al (2020) showing that musical improvisation experience can be predicted from resting state fMRI in that improvisers showed higher connectivity between primary visual network and DMN/ECN (executive control network) as well as higher connectivity between DMN and ECN while classically trained musicians on the other hand showed higher connectivity between vDMN and frontal pole. Earlier studies on creativity in non-music related contexts support these findings, reporting that creative individuals may be able to simultaneously engage large-scale networks that normally work in opposition, like default mode, salience and executive control networks (Beaty et al, 2018b).…”

“…Again, as described by Goldman et al (2020), this difference helps explain an important aspect of improvisatory training, perception, and performance. We focus on canonical cortical networks (Williams, 2016), some of which have been implicated in improvisation by previous studies (Belden et al, 2020), specifically networks related to attention (including frontoparietal network and dorsal attention network; e.g. Marek & Dosenbach (2018), Fornito et al (2012) and Vossel et al (2014)), cognitive control (e.g.…”

Neuroscientific Insights for Improved Outcomes in Music-based Interventions

“…This same set of regions is deactivated during most cognitive tasks but is more active during mind-wandering, prospection, self-referential thought, creative thought, and autobiographical memory—mental states that fall under the general category of spontaneous cognition (Buckner et al, 2008; Christoff et al, 2016). Importantly, many musical experiences engage these DMN-dependent modes of spontaneous cognition: for example, musicians who are trained to improvise show more spontaneous activity in the DMN (Belden et al, 2020), and listening to emotional music restores the spontaneous activity of the DMN (Taruffi et al, 2017). These findings relate DMN to the spontaneous cognitive processes that occur during music listening and music production, and suggest that music may facilitate restoring reduced or disrupted brain activity during neurodegenerative disease.…”