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The Journal of Neuroscience, April 4, 2007, 27(14):3799-3806; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0147-07.2007

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Broca's Area Supports Enhanced Visuospatial Cognition in Orchestral Musicians

Vanessa Sluming,^1,2 Jonathan Brooks,³ Matthew Howard,^2,4 John Joseph Downes,⁵ and Neil Roberts²

¹School of Health Sciences' Division of Medical Imaging and Radiotherapy, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GB, United Kingdom, ²Magnetic Resonance and Image Analysis Research Centre, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GE, United Kingdom, ³Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain, Department of Clinical Neurology, Oxford University, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DU, United Kingdom, ⁴Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, London SE5 8AF, United Kingdom, and ⁵School of Psychology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZA, United Kingdom

Correspondence should be addressed to Vanessa Sluming, The University of Liverpool, School of Health Sciences, Thompson-Yates Building, The Quadrangle, Brownlow Hill, Liverpool L69 3GB, UK. Email: vanessa.sluming{at}liverpool.ac.uk

We provide neurobehavioral evidence supporting the transferable benefit of music training to alter brain function and enhance cognitive performance in a nonmusical visuospatial task in professional orchestral musicians. In particular, orchestral musicians' performance on a three-dimensional mental rotation (3DMR) task exhibited the behavioral profile normally only attained after significant practice, supporting the suggestion that these musicians already possessed well developed neural circuits to support 3DMR. Furthermore, functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed that only orchestral musicians showed significantly increased activation in Broca's area, in addition to the well known visuospatial network, which was activated in both musicians and nonmusicians who were matched on age, sex, and verbal intelligence. We interpret these functional neuroimaging findings to reflect preferential recruitment of Broca's area, part of the neural substrate supporting sight reading and motor-sequence organization underpinning musical performance, to subserve 3DMR in musicians. Our data, therefore, provide convergent behavioral and neurofunctional evidence supporting the suggestion that development of the sight-reading skills of musical performance alters brain circuit organization which, in turn, confers a wider cognitive benefit, in particular, to nonmusical visuospatial cognition in professional orchestral musicians.

Key words: visuospatial; cognition; human; musician; Broca's area; mental rotation

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Received July 19, 2006; revised Feb. 27, 2007; accepted March 1, 2007.

Correspondence should be addressed to Vanessa Sluming, The University of Liverpool, School of Health Sciences, Thompson-Yates Building, The Quadrangle, Brownlow Hill, Liverpool L69 3GB, UK. Email: vanessa.sluming{at}liverpool.ac.uk

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