title: Neural substrates of interactive musical improvisation: an FMRI study of 'trading fours' in jazz.
abstract: Interactive generative musical performance provides a suitable model for communication because, like natural linguistic discourse, it involves an exchange of ideas that is unpredictable, collaborative, and emergent. Here we show that interactive improvisation between two musicians is characterized by activation of perisylvian language areas linked to processing of syntactic elements in music, including inferior frontal gyrus and posterior superior temporal gyrus, and deactivation of angular gyrus and supramarginal gyrus, brain structures directly implicated in semantic processing of language. These findings support the hypothesis that musical discourse engages language areas of the brain specialized for processing of syntax but in a manner that is not contingent upon semantic processing. Therefore, we argue that neural regions for syntactic processing are not domain-specific for language but instead may be domain-general for communication.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Gabriel F
authors.initials: GF
authors.lastname: Donnay
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Summer K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Rankin
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Monica
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lopez-Gonzalez
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Patpong
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jiradejvong
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Charles J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Limb
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009146:Music