Imaging and inducing disorders in musical perception and production.

Abstract

To perceive and produce music accurately, the brain must represent, categorize, plan, and execute pitched information in response to environmental stimuli. Convergent methods from psychophysics, neuroimaging, and noninvasive brain‐stimulation with normal and tone‐deaf (TD) subjects were employed to show that neural networks controlling pitch perception and production systems include bilateral frontotemporal networks. First, psychophysical data showed that the perception and production of pitch are uncorrelated in TD subjects, suggesting a disconnection between perception and production brain regions. This disconnection was extended in a diffusion tensor imaging study in TD and control subjects: tractography revealed that the arcuate fasciculus, which connects temporal and frontal lobes, is reduced in TD subjects, especially in its superior division in the right hemisphere. This disconnection highlights the importance of frontotemporal interactions in music processing. Finally, to reverse‐engineer the perc...