title: Continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) on left cerebellar hemisphere affects mental rotation tasks during music listening.
abstract: Converging evidence suggests an association between spatial and music domains. A cerebellar role in music-related information processing as well as in spatial-temporal tasks has been documented. Here, we investigated the cerebellar role in the association between spatial and musical domains, by testing performances in embodied (EMR) or abstract (AMR) mental rotation tasks of subjects listening Mozart Sonata K.448, which is reported to improve spatial-temporal reasoning, in the presence or in the absence of continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) of the left cerebellar hemisphere. In the absence of cerebellar cTBS, music listening did not influence either MR task, thus not revealing a "Mozart Effect". Cerebellar cTBS applied before musical listening made subjects faster (P = 0.005) and less accurate (P = 0.005) in performing the EMR but not the AMR task. Thus, cerebellar inhibition by TBS unmasked the effect of musical listening on motor imagery. These data support a coupling between music listening and sensory-motor integration in cerebellar networks for embodied representations.
authors.affiliation: IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy. s.picazio@hsantalucia.it
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Picazio
authors.forename: Massimiliano
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oliveri
authors.forename: Giacomo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Koch
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Caltagirone
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Petrosini
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes; D009146:Music; D011930:Reaction Time; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013826:Theta Rhythm / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult