Mariani Foundation Research Articles

Editorial for the Special Issue on Neurosciences and Music: Part 2.

It is a great privilege to have been the guest editor for this second special issue on the Neurosciences of Music, following up on the 2012 issue on the same theme. It hardly seems like three years have passed, but even in this relatively short time period, we have witnessed conceptual and methodological developments that represent a significant maturation of our field. The contributions of the present issue affirm the breadth and quality of research being undertaken in the music and neuroscience community. The present issue comprises nine empirical papers from contributors in seven different countries. The contributions span perceptual, cognitive, affective, neurological, and therapeutic aspects of music, using an array of neuroimaging approaches, statistical approaches, and paradigms. Topics include distinguishing between how the brain responds to the cognitive versus affective aspects of music (Ellison, Moisseinen, Fachner, & Brattico, in press), how the reward system of musicians versus nonmusicians differs during continuous naturalistic listening (Alluri et al., in press), the role of the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex in expectation (Mikutta et al., in press), the distinction between different forms of pathological and nonpathological musical imagery (Hemming & Merrill, in press) and the neural signatures of beat-based versus duration-based timing (De Pretto & James, in press). Sturm's paper focuses on the neural responses evoked during naturalistic ensemble listening, while Nakata looks at how tapping with an adaptive partner impacts pitch processing. Pfeiffer and Sabe (in press) provides a novel music-based assessment for the assessment of cognition after brain injury and, with a timely reflection on the current state of our community, Albusac-Jorge and Gimenez-Rodriguez (in press) provides a bibliometric study of the Neuroscience of Music field. We include a report on a high profile public lecture given by Daniel Levitin. Finally, we include a report on a lecture given by Daniel Levitin, and an announcement about a major new research center, Music in the Brain, in Aarhus, Denmark.As was also the case for the first special issue on this topic, we must acknowledge the critical role of the Mariani Foundation, in cooperation with the New York Academy of Sciences, who continue to provide an international nexus for dissemination and collaboration via their excellent research conferences. Several of the papers in the present issue were first presented in poster form at The Neurosciences and Music V conference, in Dijon, France, following which we announced a call for articles. …

Paediatric Neurological Disorders with Cerebellar Involvement: Diagnosis and Management – Mariani Foundation Paediaric Neurology Volume 27

Paediatric Neurological Disorders with Cerebellar Involvement: Diagnosis and Management – Mariani Foundation Paediaric Neurology Volume 27

Asymmetry of lower limb joint loading in advanced knee osteoarthritis

and was correlated to velocity of CoM at trailing limb toe-off (VelCoM-trailing-TO). In PSP patients the magnitude of this vector was 43.73±9.38 (%FL) and was inversely correlated to VelCoMtrailing-TO. The orientation of the CoP–CoM vector with respect to the progression line at time of leading-TO was statistically different between healthy (28◦ ±7◦) and patients (65◦ ±7◦) and was inversely correlated to VelCoM-trailing-TO. This angle was also inversely correlated to the acceleration of CoM at trailing limb toeoff. The angle was correlated to the severity of the disease better than the vector amplitude. In patientswith PSP themain difference with the control population was the orientation of the CoP–CoM vector. This was related to bradykinesia, retrocollis and supranuclear gaze palsy which may contribute to falls in patients with PSP [5]. Discussion: Our result suggest that CoP–CoM vector computed at the end of the unloading phase of gait initiation is an interesting parameter that could be used to characterize the altered motor control in gait initiation. In fact it is relatively stable in healthy controls and well correlated to the severity of the disease. In addition its biomechanical meaning is clear and easy to interpret, as it represents the direction andmagnitude of the CoM acceleration at the end of the unloading phase. Acknowledgments: This study was sponsored by the Mariani Foundation for Child Neurology and the Associazione Italiana Rett.

Conference report: The Neurosciences and Music-IV—Learning and Memory.

The year 2011 saw the fourth in a series of conferences on Neurosciences and Music organized by the Mariani Foundation (Fondazione Pierfranco e Luisa Mariani) and hosted this year by the Institute for Music in Human and Social Development (IMHSD) at the University of Edinburgh. Within IMHSD, Katie Overy led a panel of international experts on the scientific committee. The aim of the triennial conference is to promote the dissemination of knowledge in research fields related to neurobiology, physiology, psychology, and neuropsychology applied to music, emphasizing developmental issues. This year's theme was Learning and Memory, and the conference brought together neuroscientists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, musicians, musicologists, clinicians, and therapists for 50 presentations spread over 9 symposia, 2 workshops, and a keynote lecture, along with a further 243 posters across 3 sessions, all held between the 9th and 12th of June 2011.Constraints of time and space make it impossible to include all presentations, so we have aimed to give a narrative overview of the event tying together three themes that caught our attention: (a) perception of basic musical structure (rhythm and meter) and musical imagery; (b) the production of music (memory, learning and plasticity induced by musical training); and (c) music in the context of psychological disorders. Further details are available from the Mariani Foundation (http://www.fondazione-mariani.org), in a blog reviewing the conference, from the perspective of music psychology (http:// musicpsychology.co.uk), and another from the perspective of neuroaesthetics (http://neuroaesthetics.net).Music PerceptionBottom-Up: Processing of Basic Musical StructureThe first symposium examined mechanisms of rhythm and meter learning where a key theme of recent research has been the differences between beat-based and interval-based processing in terms of cognitive and neural processing. Contributing to these issues, J. Devin McAuley from Michigan State University showed that individual differences in beat sensitivity are related to differential activation in the basal ganglia and cortical motor areas (Grahn & McAuley, 2009). Several presenters at the conference focused on implicit learning in music perception and production, the first being Henkjan Honing from the Universiteit van Amsterdam who examined a range of research suggesting that preattentive hierarchical representations of rhythm are actually learned implicitly through mere exposure rather than through explicit musical training. This suggests that exposure might be a crucial source for interindividual differences in rhythm and meter learning (Winkler, Haden, Ladieig, Sziller, & Honing, 2009).Top-Down: Musical ImageryAnother symposium focused on higher-level processes involved in the perception of music with no bottom-up auditory input. Andrea Halpern from Bucknell University presented functional MRI (fMRI) data showing that increased vividness in musical imagery correlates with increased activation in motor areas such as Supplementary Motor Area (SMA) and basal ganglia but not, interestingly, in sensory cortex (Leaver, Van Lare, Zielinski, Halpern, & Rauschecker, 2009). Conversely, in a study presented by Robert Zatorre from McGill University, Montreal, mental transformations of music (another kind of musical imagery: recognizing reversed and transposed melodies) were found to activate intraparietal sulcus implicating the dorsal auditory pathway-that is, enhanced sensory processing-during manipulation of musical material. These diverging results in terms of sensory processing during musical imagery may be because of differences in the paradigms used or to familiarity with the musical stimuli.Turning to interindividual differences in musical imagery abilities, Peter Keller from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig presented a series of studies on action simulation suggesting that better anticipatory auditory imagery ability helps prediction and synchronization in social situations, especially when both participants are good predictors. …

Introduction to The Neurosciences and Music IV: Learning and Memory

The conference entitled "The Neurosciences and Music-IV: Learning and Memory'' was held at the University of Edinburgh from June 9-12, 2011, jointly hosted by the Mariani Foundation and the Institute for Music in Human and Social Development, and involving nearly 500 international delegates. Two opening workshops, three large and vibrant poster sessions, and nine invited symposia introduced a diverse range of recent research findings and discussed current research directions. Here, the proceedings are introduced by the workshop and symposia leaders on topics including working with children, rhythm perception, language processing, cultural learning, memory, musical imagery, neural plasticity, stroke rehabilitation, autism, and amusia. The rich diversity of the interdisciplinary research presented suggests that the future of music neuroscience looks both exciting and promising, and that important implications for music rehabilitation and therapy are being discovered.

Language: Normal and Pathological Development. Mariani Foundation Pediatric Neurology. Volume Sixteen. 2006. Edited by Dania Riva, Isabelle Rapin, Giovanna Zardini. Published by John Libbey Eurotext Limited. 265 pages. Price C$94.

Language: Normal and Pathological Development. Mariani Foundation Pediatric Neurology. Volume Sixteen. 2006. Edited by Dania Riva, Isabelle Rapin, Giovanna Zardini. Published by John Libbey Eurotext Limited. 265 pages. Price C$94.

Neurocutaneous Syndromes in Children Series: Mariani Foundation Paediatric Neurology. Volume 15. 2006. Edited by Paolo Curatolo, Daria Riva. Published by John Libbey Eurotext Limited. 238 pages. Price C$85.

Neurocutaneous Syndromes in Children Series: Mariani Foundation Paediatric Neurology. Volume 15. 2006. Edited by Paolo Curatolo, Daria Riva. Published by John Libbey Eurotext Limited. 238 pages. Price C$85.

Frontal Lobe Seizures and Epilepsies in Children. Mariani Foundation Paediatric Neurology: 11. 2003. Edited by A. Beaumanoir, F. Andermann, P. Chauvel, L. Mira, B. Zifkin, John Libbey Eurotext, Montrouge, France. 230 pages. C$102 approx.

Frontal Lobe Seizures and Epilepsies in Children. Mariani Foundation Paediatric Neurology: 11. 2003. Edited by A. Beaumanoir, F. Andermann, P. Chauvel, L. Mira, B. Zifkin, John Libbey Eurotext, Montrouge, France. 230 pages. C$102 approx. - Volume 31 Issue 3

Limbic Seizures in Children. Mariani Foundation Pediatric Neurology Series: 8. 2001. Edited by Giuliano Avanzini, Anne Beaumanoir, Laura Mira. Published by John Libbey & Company Ltd. 258 pages. C$102.00 approx.

Limbic Seizures in Children. Mariani Foundation Pediatric Neurology Series: 8. 2001. Edited by Giuliano Avanzini, Anne Beaumanoir, Laura Mira. Published by John Libbey & Company Ltd. 258 pages. C$102.00 approx. - Volume 29 Issue 2

Book Reviews : Localization of Brain Lesions and Developmental Functions, edited by D. Riva and A. Benton, Mariani Foundation Paediatric Neurology Series: 9, Series Editor, Maria Majno. Published in 2000 by Butterworth-Heinemann, Eastleigh, England, 165pages, $68.00

Book Reviews : Localization of Brain Lesions and Developmental Functions, edited by D. Riva and A. Benton, Mariani Foundation Paediatric Neurology Series: 9, Series Editor, Maria Majno. Published in 2000 by Butterworth-Heinemann, Eastleigh, England, 165pages, $68.00

Book Review: Motor Development in Children (Mariani Foundation Paediatric Neurology Series: 2), edited by Ermellina Fedrizzi, Giuliano Avanzini, and Paolo Crenna. Published in 1994 by John Libbey & Company, London, 185 pages, $51.00

Book Review: Motor Development in Children (Mariani Foundation Paediatric Neurology Series: 2), edited by Ermellina Fedrizzi, Giuliano Avanzini, and Paolo Crenna. Published in 1994 by John Libbey & Company, London, 185 pages, $51.00

Motor Development in Children (Mariani Foundation Paediatric Neurology Series

edited by ERMELLINA FEDRIZZI, GIULIANO AVANZINI, and PAOLO CRENNA, 185 pp., ill., London, John Libbey, 1994. $32.00 This book is the composite of the postgraduate course of the Pierfranco e Luisa Mariani Foundation in 1993. The 18 chapters reflect the various lectures of the course. Some of the topics are outstanding …

Social services: the link between the family and the community

The family of a sick child faces very serious and specific difficulties, both within its own structure and in relation to the community surrounding it; the connections between the family and the community may be especially problematic, in this case or, from a different standpoint (for instance, the aims of the social services), especially challenging and rewarding. At the Mariani Foundation, we have been trying to create such a link when it is missing, or at least to try and understand, when it falls short of the family's needs, what causes the problem and what the possible solutions are.