RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Selective Subcortical Enhancement of Musical Intervals in Musicians
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 5832
OP 5840
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.6133-08.2009
VO 29
IS 18
A1 Lee, Kyung Myun
A1 Skoe, Erika
A1 Kraus, Nina
A1 Ashley, Richard
YR 2009
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/29/18/5832.abstract
AB By measuring the auditory brainstem response to two musical intervals, the major sixth (E3 and G2) and the minor seventh (E3 and F#2), we found that musicians have a more specialized sensory system for processing behaviorally relevant aspects of sound. Musicians had heightened responses to the harmonics of the upper tone (E), as well as certain combination tones (sum tones) generated by nonlinear processing in the auditory system. In music, the upper note is typically carried by the upper voice, and the enhancement of the upper tone likely reflects musicians' extensive experience attending to the upper voice. Neural phase locking to the temporal periodicity of the amplitude-modulated envelope, which underlies the perception of musical harmony, was also more precise in musicians than nonmusicians. Neural enhancements were strongly correlated with years of musical training, and our findings, therefore, underscore the role that long-term experience with music plays in shaping auditory sensory encoding.