Can You Hear Me Now? Musical Training Shapes Functional Brain Networks for Selective Auditory Attention and Hearing Speech in Noise

Nina Kraus,Dana L Strait

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00113

Abstract

Even in the quietest of rooms, our senses are perpetually inundated by a barrage of sounds, requiring the auditory system to adapt to a variety of listening conditions in order to extract signals of interest (e.g., one speaker's voice amidst others). Brain networks that promote selective attention are thought to sharpen the neural encoding of a target signal, suppressing competing sounds and enhancing perceptual performance. Here, we ask: does musical training benefit cortical mechanisms that underlie selective attention to speech? To answer this question, we assessed the impact of selective auditory attention on cortical auditory-evoked response variability in musicians and non-musicians. Outcomes indicate strengthened brain networks for selective auditory attention in musicians in that musicians but not non-musicians demonstrate decreased prefrontal response variability with auditory attention. Results are interpreted in the context of previous work documenting perceptual and subcortical advantages in musicians for the hearing and neural encoding of speech in background noise. Musicians’ neural proficiency for selectively engaging and sustaining auditory attention to language indicates a potential benefit of music for auditory training. Given the importance of auditory attention for the development and maintenance of language-related skills, musical training may aid in the prevention, habilitation, and remediation of individuals with a wide range of attention-based language, listening and learning impairments.

Highlights

The human nervous system is constantly faced with an astounding amount of sensory input
The degree to which attention decreased prefrontal response variability correlated with musical practice histories and is interpreted in the context of musical training’s impact on cortical mechanisms of selective auditory attention
Cortical response variability decreases as a function of selective auditory attention A 2 × 31 × 2 RMANOVA with condition and electrode site as within subject variables and group (Mus/NonMus) as between subject variable revealed a main effect of condition on response variability, indicating that cortical response variability varied as a function of attention (F(1,22) = 10.49, p < 0.005)

Summary

Introduction

The human nervous system is constantly faced with an astounding amount of sensory input. The brain has evolved in ways that permit the modulation of neural activity according to environmental and systemic demands, permitting the selection, efficient encoding, and appropriate behavioral response to the stimuli of greatest biological interest. Selective attention makes this modulation possible, directing the allocation of neural resources to selectively encode one aspect of the environment while excluding competing aspects. Selective attention resolves the competition imposed by a mass of incoming signals through the activation of executive control regions (e.g., prefrontal cortex) to promote increased spiking in neurons that represent the attended object (Desimone and Duncan, 1995). Variability in the activation of brain networks that underlie selective attention can bring about significant behavioral disadvantages, such as attention lapses (Weissman et al, 2006) and symptoms of an attention impairment (Depue et al, 2010)

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