RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Connecting to Create: Expertise in Musical Improvisation Is Associated with Increased Functional Connectivity between Premotor and Prefrontal Areas
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 6156
OP 6163
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4769-13.2014
VO 34
IS 18
A1 Ana Luísa Pinho
A1 Örjan de Manzano
A1 Peter Fransson
A1 Helene Eriksson
A1 Fredrik Ullén
YR 2014
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/34/18/6156.abstract
AB Musicians have been used extensively to study neural correlates of long-term practice, but no studies have investigated the specific effects of training musical creativity. Here, we used human functional MRI to measure brain activity during improvisation in a sample of 39 professional pianists with varying backgrounds in classical and jazz piano playing. We found total hours of improvisation experience to be negatively associated with activity in frontoparietal executive cortical areas. In contrast, improvisation training was positively associated with functional connectivity of the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, dorsal premotor cortices, and presupplementary areas. The effects were significant when controlling for hours of classical piano practice and age. These results indicate that even neural mechanisms involved in creative behaviors, which require a flexible online generation of novel and meaningful output, can be automated by training. Second, improvisational musical training can influence functional brain properties at a network level. We show that the greater functional connectivity seen in experienced improvisers may reflect a more efficient exchange of information within associative networks of importance for musical creativity.