Music Listening Modulates Functional Connectivity and Information Flow in the Human Brain

Abstract

Listening to familiar music has recently been reported to be beneficial during recovery from stroke. A better understanding of changes in functional connectivity and information flow is warranted in order to further optimize and target this approach through music therapy. Twelve healthy volunteers listened to seven different auditory samples during an fMRI scanning session: a musical piece chosen by the volunteer that evokes a strong emotional response (referred to as: "self-selected emotional"), two unfamiliar music pieces (Invention #1 by J. S. Bach* and Gagaku - Japanese classical opera, referred to as "unfamiliar"), the Bach piece repeated with visual guidance (DML: Directed Music Listening) and three spoken language pieces (unfamiliar African click language, an excerpt of emotionally charged language, and an unemotional reading of a news bulletin). Functional connectivity and betweenness (BTW) maps, a measure for information flow, were created with a graph-theoretical approach. Distinct variation in functional connectivity was found for different music pieces consistently for all subjects. Largest brain areas were recruited for processing self-selected music with emotional attachment or culturally unfamiliar music. Maps of information flow correlated significantly with fMRI BOLD activation maps (p<0.05). Observed differences in BOLD activation and functional connectivity may help explain previously observed beneficial effects in stroke recovery, as increased blood flow to damaged brain areas stimulated by active engagement through music listening may have supported a state more conducive to therapy.

Functional connectivity of music-induced analgesia in fibromyalgia

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Classical Music Therapy as The Intervention to Relieve Headache in A Meningitis Patient

“…When listening to music, Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) increases so that the functional network of the brain especially auditory, limbic, and motor regions becomes active 7 . Through MRI imaging research, BOLD activation increases in arterial cerebral stroke clients who routinely listen to music for about 10 to 20 minutes.…”

Music and Brain Plasticity: How Sounds Trigger Neurogenerative Adaptations

“…Recent studies have provided evidence that music-induced plasticity may help also to overcome neurological impairments, such as neurodevelopmental disorders and acquired brain injuries [56]. For instance, attentive music listening recruits multiple forms of working memory, attention, semantic processing, target detection and motor function, relying mainly on bilateral brain areas-superior temporal gyrus, intraparietal sulcus, precentral sulcus, inferior sulcus and gyrus, and frontal operculum-which all serve general functions rather than music-specific cortical regions [87,88]. Complex musical tasks, moreover, engage the co-activation of many processes involving widely distributed and partly interchangeable substrates of the brain [89].…”