Inter-subject synchronization of brain responses during natural music listening

• Published in: The European journal of neuroscience Vol. 37; no. 9; pp. 1458 - 1469
• Main Authors: Abrams, Daniel A., Ryali, Srikanth, Chen, Tianwen, Chordia, Parag, Khouzam, Amirah, Levitin, Daniel J., Menon, Vinod
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.05.2013; Blackwell
• Subjects: Acoustic Stimulation; Adult; auditory cortex; Auditory Perception; Biological and medical sciences; Brain - physiology; Brain Mapping; Ear and associated structures. Auditory pathways and centers. Hearing. Vocal organ. Phonation. Sound production. Echolocation; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; inferior colliculus; inferior frontal gyrus; Male; medial geniculate; Music; Nerve Net - physiology; parietal cortex; Vertebrates: nervous system and sense organs; Medial geniculate body; Human; medial geniculate; Colliculus inferior; inferior frontal gyrus; Central nervous system; Parietal cortex; inferior colliculus; Auditory pathway; Synchronization; Auditory cortex; Encephalon
• ISSN: 0953-816X; 1460-9568; 1460-9568
• DOI: 10.1111/ejn.12173

Music is a cultural universal and a rich part of the human experience. However, little is known about common brain systems that support the processing and integration of extended, naturalistic ‘real‐world’ music stimuli. We examined this question by presenting extended excerpts of symphonic music, and two pseudomusical stimuli in which the temporal and spectral structure of the Natural Music condition were disrupted, to non‐musician participants undergoing functional brain imaging and analysing synchronized spatiotemporal activity patterns between listeners. We found that music synchronizes brain responses across listeners in bilateral auditory midbrain and thalamus, primary auditory and auditory association cortex, right‐lateralized structures in frontal and parietal cortex, and motor planning regions of the brain. These effects were greater for natural music compared to the pseudo‐musical control conditions. Remarkably, inter‐subject synchronization in the inferior colliculus and medial geniculate nucleus was also greater for the natural music condition, indicating that synchronization at these early stages of auditory processing is not simply driven by spectro‐temporal features of the stimulus. Increased synchronization during music listening was also evident in a right‐hemisphere fronto‐parietal attention network and bilateral cortical regions involved in motor planning. While these brain structures have previously been implicated in various aspects of musical processing, our results are the first to show that these regions track structural elements of a musical stimulus over extended time periods lasting minutes. Our results show that a hierarchical distributed network is synchronized between individuals during the processing of extended musical sequences, and provide new insight into the temporal integration of complex and biologically salient auditory sequences. Little is known about common brain systems that support the integration of extended, naturalistic music stimuli. We show that music synchronizes brain response across listeners in bilateral auditory midbrain and thalamus, auditory cortex, right‐lateralized structures in frontal and parietal cortex, and motor planning regions of the brain. Results show that a hierarchical distributed network is synchronized between individuals during the processing of extended musical sequences.