Inter-subject Similarity of Brain Activity in Expert Musicians After Multimodal Learning: A Behavioral and Neuroimaging Study on Learning to Play a Piano Sonata

Maria C. Fasano; Enrico Glerean; Benjamin P. Gold; Dana Sheng; Mikko Sams; Peter Vuust; Josef P. Rauschecker; Elvira Brattico

doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2020.06.015

Inter-subject Similarity of Brain Activity in Expert Musicians After Multimodal Learning: A Behavioral and Neuroimaging Study on Learning to Play a Piano Sonata

Maria C. Fasano, Enrico Glerean, Benjamin P. Gold, Dana Sheng, Mikko Sams, Peter Vuust, Josef P. Rauschecker, Elvira Brattico^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Human behavior is inherently multimodal and relies on sensorimotor integration. This is evident when pianists exhibit activity in motor and premotor cortices, as part of a dorsal pathway, while listening to a familiar piece of music, or when naïve participants learn to play simple patterns on the piano. Here we investigated the interaction between multimodal learning and dorsal-stream activity over the course of four weeks in ten skilled pianists by adopting a naturalistic data-driven analysis approach. We presented the pianists with audio-only, video-only and audiovisual recordings of a piano sonata during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) before and after they had learned to play the sonata by heart for a total of four weeks. We followed the learning process and its outcome with questionnaires administered to the pianists, one piano instructor following their training, and seven external expert judges. The similarity of the pianists’ brain activity during stimulus presentations was examined before and after learning by means of inter-subject correlation (ISC) analysis. After learning, an increased ISC was found in the pianists while watching the audiovisual performance, particularly in motor and premotor regions of the dorsal stream. While these brain structures have previously been associated with learning simple audio-motor sequences, our findings are the first to suggest their involvement in learning a complex and demanding audiovisual-motor task. Moreover, the most motivated learners and the best performers of the sonata showed ISC in the dorsal stream and in the reward brain network.

Original language	English
Journal	Neuroscience
Volume	441
Pages (from-to)	102-116
Number of pages	15
ISSN	0306-4522
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2020.06.015
Publication status	Published - 2020

Keywords

audiovisual perception
dorsal pathway
motivation
striatum
multimodal learning
auditory-motor integration

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10.1016/j.neuroscience.2020.06.015

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title = "Inter-subject Similarity of Brain Activity in Expert Musicians After Multimodal Learning: A Behavioral and Neuroimaging Study on Learning to Play a Piano Sonata",

abstract = "Human behavior is inherently multimodal and relies on sensorimotor integration. This is evident when pianists exhibit activity in motor and premotor cortices, as part of a dorsal pathway, while listening to a familiar piece of music, or when na{\"i}ve participants learn to play simple patterns on the piano. Here we investigated the interaction between multimodal learning and dorsal-stream activity over the course of four weeks in ten skilled pianists by adopting a naturalistic data-driven analysis approach. We presented the pianists with audio-only, video-only and audiovisual recordings of a piano sonata during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) before and after they had learned to play the sonata by heart for a total of four weeks. We followed the learning process and its outcome with questionnaires administered to the pianists, one piano instructor following their training, and seven external expert judges. The similarity of the pianists{\textquoteright} brain activity during stimulus presentations was examined before and after learning by means of inter-subject correlation (ISC) analysis. After learning, an increased ISC was found in the pianists while watching the audiovisual performance, particularly in motor and premotor regions of the dorsal stream. While these brain structures have previously been associated with learning simple audio-motor sequences, our findings are the first to suggest their involvement in learning a complex and demanding audiovisual-motor task. Moreover, the most motivated learners and the best performers of the sonata showed ISC in the dorsal stream and in the reward brain network.",

keywords = "audiovisual perception, dorsal pathway, motivation, striatum, multimodal learning, auditory-motor integration",

author = "Fasano, {Maria C.} and Enrico Glerean and Gold, {Benjamin P.} and Dana Sheng and Mikko Sams and Peter Vuust and Rauschecker, {Josef P.} and Elvira Brattico",

year = "2020",

doi = "10.1016/j.neuroscience.2020.06.015",

language = "English",

volume = "441",

pages = "102--116",

journal = "Neuroscience",

issn = "0306-4522",

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Inter-subject Similarity of Brain Activity in Expert Musicians After Multimodal Learning: A Behavioral and Neuroimaging Study on Learning to Play a Piano Sonata. / Fasano, Maria C.; Glerean, Enrico; Gold, Benjamin P. et al.
In: Neuroscience, Vol. 441, 2020, p. 102-116.

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review

TY - JOUR

T1 - Inter-subject Similarity of Brain Activity in Expert Musicians After Multimodal Learning

T2 - A Behavioral and Neuroimaging Study on Learning to Play a Piano Sonata

AU - Fasano, Maria C.

AU - Glerean, Enrico

AU - Gold, Benjamin P.

AU - Sheng, Dana

AU - Sams, Mikko

AU - Vuust, Peter

AU - Rauschecker, Josef P.

AU - Brattico, Elvira

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - Human behavior is inherently multimodal and relies on sensorimotor integration. This is evident when pianists exhibit activity in motor and premotor cortices, as part of a dorsal pathway, while listening to a familiar piece of music, or when naïve participants learn to play simple patterns on the piano. Here we investigated the interaction between multimodal learning and dorsal-stream activity over the course of four weeks in ten skilled pianists by adopting a naturalistic data-driven analysis approach. We presented the pianists with audio-only, video-only and audiovisual recordings of a piano sonata during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) before and after they had learned to play the sonata by heart for a total of four weeks. We followed the learning process and its outcome with questionnaires administered to the pianists, one piano instructor following their training, and seven external expert judges. The similarity of the pianists’ brain activity during stimulus presentations was examined before and after learning by means of inter-subject correlation (ISC) analysis. After learning, an increased ISC was found in the pianists while watching the audiovisual performance, particularly in motor and premotor regions of the dorsal stream. While these brain structures have previously been associated with learning simple audio-motor sequences, our findings are the first to suggest their involvement in learning a complex and demanding audiovisual-motor task. Moreover, the most motivated learners and the best performers of the sonata showed ISC in the dorsal stream and in the reward brain network.

AB - Human behavior is inherently multimodal and relies on sensorimotor integration. This is evident when pianists exhibit activity in motor and premotor cortices, as part of a dorsal pathway, while listening to a familiar piece of music, or when naïve participants learn to play simple patterns on the piano. Here we investigated the interaction between multimodal learning and dorsal-stream activity over the course of four weeks in ten skilled pianists by adopting a naturalistic data-driven analysis approach. We presented the pianists with audio-only, video-only and audiovisual recordings of a piano sonata during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) before and after they had learned to play the sonata by heart for a total of four weeks. We followed the learning process and its outcome with questionnaires administered to the pianists, one piano instructor following their training, and seven external expert judges. The similarity of the pianists’ brain activity during stimulus presentations was examined before and after learning by means of inter-subject correlation (ISC) analysis. After learning, an increased ISC was found in the pianists while watching the audiovisual performance, particularly in motor and premotor regions of the dorsal stream. While these brain structures have previously been associated with learning simple audio-motor sequences, our findings are the first to suggest their involvement in learning a complex and demanding audiovisual-motor task. Moreover, the most motivated learners and the best performers of the sonata showed ISC in the dorsal stream and in the reward brain network.

KW - audiovisual perception

KW - dorsal pathway

KW - motivation

KW - striatum

KW - multimodal learning

KW - auditory-motor integration

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85087688945&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2020.06.015

DO - 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2020.06.015

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 32569807

AN - SCOPUS:85087688945

SN - 0306-4522

VL - 441

SP - 102

EP - 116

JO - Neuroscience

JF - Neuroscience

ER -

Inter-subject Similarity of Brain Activity in Expert Musicians After Multimodal Learning: A Behavioral and Neuroimaging Study on Learning to Play a Piano Sonata

Abstract

Keywords

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