BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: We can easily recognize familiar music by listening to only one or 2 of its opening bars, but the brain regions that participate in this cognitive processing remain undetermined. We used positron-emission tomography (PET) to study changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) that occur during listening to familiar music. METHODS: We used a PET subtraction technique to elucidate the brain regions associated with the recognition of familiar melodies such as well-known nursery tunes. Nonmusicians performed 2 kinds of musical tasks: judging the familiarity of musical pieces (familiarity task) and detecting deliberately altered notes in the pieces (alteration-detecting task). RESULTS: During the familiarity task, bilateral anterior portions of bilateral temporal lobes, superior temporal regions, and parahippocampal gyri were activated. The alteration-detecting task bilaterally activated regions in the precunei, superior/inferior parietal lobules, and lateral surface of frontal lobes, which seemed to show a correlation with the analysis of music. CONCLUSION: We hypothesize that during the familiarity task, activated brain regions participate in retrieval from long-term memory and verbal and emotional processing of familiar melodies. Our results reinforced the hypothesis reported in the literature as a result of group and case studies, that temporal lobe regions participate in the recognition of familiar melodies.
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: We can easily recognize familiar music by listening to only one or 2 of its opening bars, but the brain regions that participate in this cognitive processing remain undetermined. We used positron-emission tomography (PET) to study changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) that occur during listening to familiar music. METHODS: We used a PET subtraction technique to elucidate the brain regions associated with the recognition of familiar melodies such as well-known nursery tunes. Nonmusicians performed 2 kinds of musical tasks: judging the familiarity of musical pieces (familiarity task) and detecting deliberately altered notes in the pieces (alteration-detecting task). RESULTS: During the familiarity task, bilateral anterior portions of bilateral temporal lobes, superior temporal regions, and parahippocampal gyri were activated. The alteration-detecting task bilaterally activated regions in the precunei, superior/inferior parietal lobules, and lateral surface of frontal lobes, which seemed to show a correlation with the analysis of music. CONCLUSION: We hypothesize that during the familiarity task, activated brain regions participate in retrieval from long-term memory and verbal and emotional processing of familiar melodies. Our results reinforced the hypothesis reported in the literature as a result of group and case studies, that temporal lobe regions participate in the recognition of familiar melodies.
Authors: K Nakamura; R Kawashima; N Sato; A Nakamura; M Sugiura; T Kato; K Hatano; K Ito; H Fukuda; T Schormann; K Zilles Journal: Brain Date: 2000-09 Impact factor: 13.501
Authors: Julene K Johnson; Chiung-Chih Chang; Simona M Brambati; Raffaella Migliaccio; Maria Luisa Gorno-Tempini; Bruce L Miller; Petr Janata Journal: Cogn Behav Neurol Date: 2011-06 Impact factor: 1.600
Authors: Carlos Silva Pereira; João Teixeira; Patrícia Figueiredo; João Xavier; São Luís Castro; Elvira Brattico Journal: PLoS One Date: 2011-11-16 Impact factor: 3.240