Neural correlates underlying perception of tonality-related emotional contents.

Using an event-related functional MRI technique, we examined the blood oxygen level-dependent responses of normal participants to auditory stimuli that consisted of four triads to explore the neural correlates for judging mode-related emotional contents in tonal music. Three categories of stimuli, MAJOR, MINOR and NEUTRAL were prepared. MAJOR and MINOR stimuli suggest C major and c minor, respectively. NEUTRAL stimuli were controls. The task was to judge the categories. Contrasts MAJOR-NEUTRAL and MINOR-NEUTRAL showed significant activation in the bilateral inferior frontal gyri, medial thalamus, and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. It is suggested that the bilateral inferior frontal gyri and medial thalamus are involved in judging the mode, whereas the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex was related to conflicts in the participant's mind.