Beyond auditory cortex: working with musical thoughts

Abstract

Musical imagery is associated with neural activity in auditory cortex, but prior studies have not examined musical imagery tasks requiring mental transformations. This paper describes functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies requiring manipulation of musical information. In one set of experiments, listeners were asked to mentally reverse a familiar tune when presented backwards. This manipulation consistently elicits neural activity in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS). Separate experiments requiring judgments about melodies that have been transposed from one musical key to another also elicit IPS activation. Conjunction analyses indicate that the same portions of the IPS are recruited in both tasks. The findings suggest that the dorsal pathway of auditory processing is involved in the manipulation and transformation of auditory information, as has also been shown for visuomotor and visuospatial tasks. As such, it provides a substrate for the creation of new mental representations that are based on manipulation of previously experienced sensory events.