Abstract
Interhemispheric inhibition (IHI) is essential for dexterous motor control. Small previous studies have shown differences in IHI in musicians compared to non-musicians, but it is not clear whether these differences are robustly linked to musical performance. In the largest study to date, we examined IHI and comprehensive measures of dexterous bimanual performance in 72 individuals (36 musicians and 36 non-musicians). Dexterous bimanual performance was quantified by speed, accuracy, and evenness derived from a series of hand tasks. As expected, musicians significantly outperformed non-musicians. Surprisingly, these performance differences could not be simply explained by IHI, as IHI did not significantly differ between musicians and non-musicians. However, canonical correlation analysis revealed a significant relationship between combinations of IHI and performance variables in the musician group. Specifically, we identified that IHI may contribute to the maintenance of evenness regardless of speed, a feature of musical performance that may be driven by practice with a metronome. Therefore, while IHI changes by themselves may not be sufficient to explain superior hand dexterity exhibited by musicians, IHI may be a potential neural correlate for specific features of musical performance.
Highlights
Active engagement Perceptual abilities Musical training Singing abilities Emotions General musical sophistication Training start age Total training time Average daily practice time Total practice time past week
The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between IHI and bimanual coordination in musicians compared with non-musicians
The current study aimed to investigate whether modifications in interhemispheric communication as a function of prolonged musical training is associated with skilled bimanual coordination
Summary
Active engagement Perceptual abilities Musical training Singing abilities Emotions General musical sophistication Training start age (years) Total training time (years) Average daily practice time (hours) Total practice time past week (hours). The majority of research has focused on either brain differences between musicians and non-musicians without consideration of hand motor control[15,17,18,19] or differences between musicians and non-musicians in hand motor control without examination of any brain measures Those studies that have evaluated motor function in musicians compared to non-musicians have mostly utilized simple unimanual tasks[9,20,21,22]. The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between IHI and bimanual coordination in musicians compared with non-musicians. We hypothesized that a stronger relationship between IHI and bimanual coordination (i.e. both symmetric and asymmetric tasks) would be observed in musicians compared with non-musicians. An alternative hypothesis is that a stronger relationship between IHI and bimanual coordination in musicians will be evident in only one form of bimanual coordination, either a symmetric or asymmetric task, in accordance with the skill acquired from symmetric (e.g. piano) or asymmetric (e.g. violin) instrument training
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