Abstract
PurposeMusicians experience a large amount of information transfer and integration of complex sensory, motor, and auditory processes when training and playing musical instruments. Therefore, musicians are a useful model in which to investigate neural adaptations in the brain.MethodsHere, based on diffusion-weighted imaging, probabilistic tractography was used to determine the architecture of white matter anatomical networks in musicians and non-musicians. Furthermore, the features of the white matter networks were analyzed using graph theory.ResultsSmall-world properties of the white matter network were observed in both groups. Compared with non-musicians, the musicians exhibited significantly increased connectivity strength in the left and right supplementary motor areas, the left calcarine fissure and surrounding cortex and the right caudate nucleus, as well as a significantly larger weighted clustering coefficient in the right olfactory cortex, the left medial superior frontal gyrus, the right gyrus rectus, the left lingual gyrus, the left supramarginal gyrus, and the right pallidum. Furthermore, there were differences in the node betweenness centrality in several regions. However, no significant differences in topological properties were observed at a global level.ConclusionsWe illustrated preliminary findings to extend the network level understanding of white matter plasticity in musicians who have had long-term musical training. These structural, network-based findings may indicate that musicians have enhanced information transmission efficiencies in local white matter networks that are related to musical training.
Highlights
As is widely known, musicians represent an ideal model to investigate experience-driven plasticity changes in the human brain related to their long-term complex musical training and performances [1,2]
MEG studies have shown increased somatosensory representation of the fingers of the left hand in string players compared to control group [12], as well as an increased auditory cortical representation in musicians versus non-musicians [13,14]; the locations of the equivalent current dipoles (ECDs) for the noise burst were significantly posterior to the ECDs for the tones in the two hemispheres of the musicians, but were not in the non-musicians [15]
A white matter (WM) network was constructed for each subject
Summary
Musicians represent an ideal model to investigate experience-driven plasticity changes in the human brain related to their long-term complex musical training and performances [1,2]. MEG studies have shown increased somatosensory representation of the fingers of the left hand in string players compared to control group [12], as well as an increased auditory cortical representation in musicians versus non-musicians [13,14]; the locations of the equivalent current dipoles (ECDs) for the noise burst were significantly posterior to the ECDs for the tones in the two hemispheres of the musicians, but were not in the non-musicians [15] These event-related functional imaging results suggested that musicians had better performances in specific sensory, motor, and auditory tasks. In our previous resting-state fMRI study, enhanced integration of the motor and perceptual systems was observed in musicians [18] These findings demonstrated that intensive musical experience could induce changes in functional plasticity in the human brain and may increase the efficiency of integration and the processing of motor, auditory, and visual information
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