title: Common modulation of limbic network activation underlies musical emotions as they unfold.
abstract: Music is a powerful means for communicating emotions among individuals. Here we reveal that this continuous stream of affective information is commonly represented in the brains of different listeners and that particular musical attributes mediate this link. We examined participants' brain responses to two naturalistic musical pieces using functional Magnetic Resonance imaging (fMRI). Following scanning, as participants listened to the musical pieces for a second time, they continuously indicated their emotional experience on scales of valence and arousal. These continuous reports were used along with a detailed annotation of the musical features, to predict a novel index of Dynamic Common Activation (DCA) derived from ten large-scale data-driven functional networks. We found an association between the unfolding music-induced emotionality and the DCA modulation within a vast network of limbic regions. The limbic-DCA modulation further corresponded with continuous changes in two temporal musical features: beat-strength and tempo. Remarkably, this "collective limbic sensitivity" to temporal features was found to mediate the link between limbic-DCA and the reported emotionality. An additional association with the emotional experience was found in a left fronto-parietal network, but only among a sub-group of participants with a high level of musical experience (>5years). These findings may indicate two processing-levels underlying the unfolding of common music emotionality; (1) a widely shared core-affective process that is confined to a limbic network and mediated by temporal regularities in music and (2) an experience based process that is rooted in a left fronto-parietal network that may involve functioning of the 'mirror-neuron system'.
authors.affiliation: Functional Brain Center, Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel; Sagol school of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel; School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. Electronic address: neomisin@post.tau.ac.il.
authors.forename: Neomi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Singer
authors.affiliation: Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel; Department of Music, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel; Brain and cognitive sciences, Massachusetts Institute for Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Nori
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Jacoby
authors.affiliation: Functional Brain Center, Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel; School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Tamar
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Functional Brain Center, Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel; Film and Television Department, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Gal
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Raz
authors.affiliation: IBM research, Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Lavi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Shpigelman
authors.affiliation: Functional Brain Center, Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel; School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Gadi
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gilam
authors.affiliation: Musicology Department, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
authors.forename: Roni Y
authors.initials: RY
authors.lastname: Granot
authors.affiliation: Functional Brain Center, Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel; Sagol school of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel; School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel; Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. Electronic address: talma@tasmc.health.gov.il.
authors.forename: Talma
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hendler
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000502:physiology; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008032:Limbic System / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009146:Music / Q000523:psychology*; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Arousal-gated valence in music; Common neural activation; Inter-personal perspective; Mediation; Rhythm; Temporal dynamics; fMRI