Brain changes after learning to read and play music.
Musically naive participants were scanned before and after a period of 15 weeks during which they were taught to read music and play the keyboard. When participants played melodies from musical notation after training, activation was seen in a cluster of voxels within the bilateral superior parietal cortex. A subset of these voxels were activated in a second experiment in which musical notation was present, but irrelevant for task performance. These activations suggest that music reading involves the automatic sensorimotor translation of a spatial code (written music) into a series of motor responses (keypresses).
Stewart
Lauren
L
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N3AR, UK. l.stewart@ucl.ac.uk
Henson
Rik
R
Kampe
Knut
K
Walsh
Vincent
V
Turner
Robert
R
Frith
Uta
U
D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills; D009146:Music / Q000523:psychology*; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D011932:Reading