Emotion processing of major, minor, and dissonant chords: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study.
Musicians and nonmusicians listened to major, minor, and dissonant musical chords while their BOLD brain responses were registered with functional magnetic resonance imaging. In both groups of listeners, minor and dissonant chords, compared with major chords, elicited enhanced responses in several brain areas, including the amygdala, retrosplenial cortex, brain stem, and cerebellum, during passive listening but not during memorization of the chords. The results indicate that (1) neural processing in emotion-related brain areas is activated even by single chords, (2) emotion processing is enhanced in the absence of cognitive requirements, and (3) musicians and nonmusicians do not differ in their neural responses to single musical chords during passive listening.
Pallesen
Karen Johanne
KJ
Center for Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University Hospital, Nørrebrogade 44, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. karenjohanne@pet.auh.dk
Brattico
Elvira
E
Bailey
Christopher
C
Korvenoja
Antti
A
Koivisto
Juha
J
Gjedde
Albert
A
Carlson
Synnöve
S
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003071:Cognition; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009146:Music; D009474:Neurons / Q000473:pathology; D010897:Pitch Discrimination