title: Amygdala activity can be modulated by unexpected chord functions during music listening.
abstract: Numerous earlier studies have investigated the cognitive processing of musical syntax with regular and irregular chord sequences. However, irregular sequences may also be perceived as unexpected, and therefore have a different emotional valence than regular sequences. We provide behavioral data showing that irregular chord functions presented in chord sequence paradigms are perceived as less pleasant than regular sequences. A reanalysis of functional MRI data showed increased blood oxygen level-dependent signal changes bilaterally in the amygdala in response to music-syntactically irregular (compared with regular) chord functions. The combined data indicate that music-syntactically irregular events elicit brain activity related to emotional processes, and that, in addition to intensely pleasurable music or highly unpleasant music, single chord functions can also modulate amygdala activity.
authors.affiliation: Junior Research Group Neurocognition of Music, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science, Leipzig, Germany. koelsch@cbs.mpg.de
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Koelsch
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fritz
authors.forename: Gottfried
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Schlaug
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000679:Amygdala / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D009146:Music; D010897:Pitch Discrimination / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult