Unlocking the musical brain: A proof-of-concept study on playing the piano in MRI scanner with naturalistic stimuli

Abstract

Music is a universal human phenomenon, and can be studied for itself or as a window into the understanding of the brain. Few neuroimaging studies investigate actual playing in the MRI scanner, likely because of the lack of available experimental hardware and analysis tools. Here, we offer an innovative paradigm that addresses this issue in neuromusicology using naturalistic, polyphonic musical stimuli, presents a commercially available MRI-compatible piano, and a flexible approach to quantify participant's performance. We show how making errors while playing can be investigated using an altered auditory feedback paradigm. In the spirit of open science, we make our experimental paradigms and analysis tools available to other researchers studying pianists in MRI. Altogether, we present a proof-of-concept study which shows the feasibility of playing the novel piano in MRI, and a step towards using more naturalistic stimuli.