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A rapid sound-action association effect in human insular cortex

Mutschler, Isabella and Schulze-Bonhage, Andreas and Glauche, Volkmar and Demandt, Evariste and Speck, Oliver and Ball, Tonio. (2007) A rapid sound-action association effect in human insular cortex. PLoS ONE, Vol. 2, H. 2 , e259.

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Official URL: http://edoc.unibas.ch/dok/A5842014

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Learning to play a musical piece is a prime example of complex sensorimotor learning in humans. Recent studies using electroencephalography (EEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) indicate that passive listening to melodies previously rehearsed by subjects on a musical instrument evokes differential brain activation as compared with unrehearsed melodies. These changes were already evident after 20-30 minutes of training. The exact brain regions involved in these differential brain responses have not yet been delineated. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDING: Using functional mri (fmri), we investigated subjects who passively listened to simple piano melodies from two conditions: in the 'actively learned melodies' condition subjects learned to play a piece on the piano during a short training session of a maximum of 30 minutes before the fMRI experiment, and in the 'passively learned melodies' condition subjects listened passively to and were thus familiarized with the piece. We found increased fMRI responses to actively compared with passively learned melodies in the left anterior insula, extending to the left fronto-opercular cortex. The area of significant activation overlapped the insular sensorimotor hand area as determined by our meta-analysis of previous functional imaging studies. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results provide evidence for differential brain responses to action-related sounds after short periods of learning in the human insular cortex. As the hand sensorimotor area of the insular cortex appears to be involved in these responses, re-activation of movement representations stored in the insular sensorimotor cortex may have contributed to the observed effect. The insular cortex may therefore play a role in the initial learning phase of action-perception associations.
Faculties and Departments:07 Faculty of Psychology > Departement Psychologie
UniBasel Contributors:Mutschler, Isabella
Item Type:Article, refereed
Article Subtype:Research Article
Publisher:Public Library of Science
e-ISSN:1932-6203
Note:Publication type according to Uni Basel Research Database: Journal article
Language:English
edoc DOI:
Last Modified:31 Aug 2018 06:40
Deposited On:11 Oct 2012 15:15

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