Activated brain regions in musicians during an ensemble: a PET study

As in visual processing, we speculated that, in music processing, different brain regions would activate according to the mode of music listening . Us ing motels by a famous composer, we studied changes in regional cerebral bl ood flow (rCBF) with positron emission tomography associated with concentra ting on the alto-part within the harmony (alto-part-listening condition) co mpared to listening to the harmony as a whole (harmony-listening condition) . The alto-part-listening condition was associated with bilateral increases of rCBF in superior parietal lobules, precunei, premotor areas and orbital frontal cortices. Superior parietal lobules are likely to be responsible f or auditory selective attention to the alto part within the harmony and the analysis of tone pitch on a mental score. The precuneus possibly participa ted in writing tones of the alto part on a mental score. Based on our findi ngs, we propose that both auditory selective attention and analytic process ing play an important role in concentrating on a certain vocal part within a harmony. During the harmony-listening condition, temporal poles, the ante rior portion of the cingulate gyrus, occipital cortex and the medial surfac e of the cerebellum were bilaterally activated. Further studies are necessa ry to clarify the difference in music processing between musicians and nonm usicians. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.