Born to dance but beat deaf: a new form of congenital amusia

Humans move to the beat of music. Despite the ubiquity and early emergence of this response, some individuals report being unable to feel the beat in music. We report a sample of people without special training, all of whom were proficient at perceiving and producing the musical beat with the exception of one case (“Mathieu”). Motion capture and psychophysical tests revealed that people synchronized full-body motion to music and detected when a model dancer was not in time with the music. In contrast, Mathieu failed to period- and phase-lock his movement to the beat of most music pieces, and failed to detect most asynchronies of the model dancer. Mathieu's near-normal synchronization with a metronome suggests that the deficit concerns beat finding in the context of music. These results point to time as having a distinct neurobiological origin from pitch in music processing.     

Changes in sensorimotor regions of the cerebral cortex in congenital amusia:a case-control study

Perceiving pitch is a central function of the human auditory system;congenital amusia is a disorder of pitch perception.The underlying neural mechanisms of congenital amusia have been actively discussed.However,little attention has been paid to the changes in the motor rain within congenital amusia.In this case-control study,17 participants with congenital amusia and 14 healthy controls underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while resting with their eyes closed.A voxel-based degree centrality method was used to identify abnormal functional network centrality by comparing degree centrality values between the congenital amusia group and the healthy control group.We found decreased degree centrality values in the right primary sensorimotor areas in participants with congenital amusia relative to controls,indicating potentially decreased centrality of the corresponding brain regions in the auditory-sensory motor feedback network.We found a significant positive correlation between the degree centrality values and the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia scores.In conclusion,our study identified novel,hitherto undiscussed candidate brain regions that may partly contribute to or be modulated by congenital amusia.Our evidence supports the view that sensorimotor coupling plays an important role in memory and musical discrimination.The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Second Xiangya Hospital,Central South University,China(No.WDX20180101GZ01) on February 9,2019.     

Receptive amusia: temporal auditory processing deficit in a professional musician following a left temporo-parietal lesion

This study examined the musical processing in a professional musician who suffered from amusia after a left temporo-parietal stroke. The patient showed preserved metric judgement and normal performance in all aspects of melodic processing. By contrast, he lost the ability to discriminate or reproduce rhythms. Arrhythmia was only observed in the auditory modality: discrimination of auditorily presented rhythms was severely impaired, whereas performance was normal in the visual modality. Moreover, a length effect was observed in discrimination of rhythm, while this was not the case for melody discrimination. The arrhythmia could not be explained by low-level auditory processing impairments such as interval and length discrimination and the impairment was limited to auditory input, since the patient produced correct rhythmic patterns from a musical score. Since rhythm processing was selectively disturbed in the auditory modality, the arrhythmia cannot be attributed to a impairment of supra-modal temporal processing. Rather, our findings suggest modality-specific encoding of musical temporal information. Besides, it is proposed that the processing of auditory rhythmic sequences involves a specific left hemispheric temporal buffer.     

Changes in frontal-parietal activation and math skills performance following adaptive number sense training: Preliminary results from a pilot study

Number sense is believed to be critical for math development. It is putatively an implicitly learned skill and may therefore have limitations in terms of being explicitly trained, particularly in individuals with altered neurodevelopment. A case series study was conducted using an adaptive, computerised programme that focused on number sense and general problem-solving skills. The study was designed to investigate training effects on performance as well as brain function in a group of children with Turner syndrome who are at risk for math difficulties and altered development of math-related brain networks. Standardised measurements of math and math-related cognitive skills as well as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) were used to assess behavioural and neurobiological outcomes following training. Participants demonstrated significantly increased basic math skills, including number sense, and calculation as well as processing speed, cognitive flexibility and visual-spatial processing skills. With the exception of calculation, increased scores also were clinically significant (i.e., recovered) based on reliable change analysis. Participants additionally demonstrated significantly increased bilateral parietal lobe activation and decreased frontal-striatal and mesial temporal activation following the training programme. These findings show proof of concept for an accessible training approach that may be potentially associated with improved number sense, math and related skills, as well as functional changes in math-related neural systems, even among individuals at risk for altered brain development.     

Processing pitch and duration in music reading: a RT-ERP study

The originality of this study is to examine the processing of pitch and duration in music reading, using both electrophysiological and behavioral methods. Specifically, it was of interest to determine whether pitch and duration in music reading are processed independently or jointly. A probe, comprising a key and time signature was presented, and participants were required to compute the tonic and/or the best fitting duration. A target note followed the probe and participants made a match/mismatch judgment on the dimension they were required to analyze (i.e. pitch or duration). We hypothesized that, if pitch and duration are processed independently results should show no interference of the irrelevant dimension on the relevant. Results showed that early differences emerged in the ERPs as a function of the task to be performed on the target in block 1. Moreover, RTs were shorter in the pitch than in the duration task and for congruous than incongruous targets. In the ERPs, this congruity effect was reflected by a negative component, to incongruous targets. Most importantly, the congruency of the target note on the irrelevant dimension did not have any effect on the ERPs, suggesting that pitch and duration are processed independently.     

Processing melodic contour and speech intonation in congenital amusics with Mandarin Chinese

Congenital amusia is a disorder in the perception and production of musical pitch. It has been suggested that early exposure to a tonal language may compensate for the pitch disorder (Peretz, 2008). If so, it is reasonable to expect that there would be different characterizations of pitch perception in music and speech in congenital amusics who speak a tonal language, such as Mandarin. In this study, a group of 11 adults with amusia whose first language was Mandarin were tested with melodic contour and speech intonation discrimination and identification tasks. The participants with amusia were impaired in discriminating and identifying melodic contour. These abnormalities were also detected in identifying both speech and non-linguistic analogue derived patterns for the Mandarin intonation tasks. In addition, there was an overall trend for the participants with amusia to show deficits with respect to controls in the intonation discrimination tasks for both speech and non-linguistic analogues. These findings suggest that the amusics’ melodic pitch deficits may extend to the perception of speech, and could potentially result in some language deficits in those who speak a tonal language.     

Maturation of cortical mismatch responses to occasional pitch change in early infancy: effects of presentation rate and magnitude of change

Previous studies have reported two types of event-related potential (ERP) mismatch responses in infants to infrequent auditory changes: a broad discriminative positivity in younger infants and a negativity resembling adult mismatch negativity (MMN) in older infants. In the present study, we investigated whether the positive discriminative slow wave and the adult-like MMN are functionally distinct by examining how they are affected by presentation rate and magnitude of change. We measured ERPs from adults, 2-month-olds, and 4-month-olds to a repeating piano tone (standard) that occasionally changed in pitch (deviant). The pitch changes between standards and deviants were either small (1/12 octave) or large (1/2 octave) in magnitude, and the stimulus presentation rate was either slow (800 ms SOA) or fast (400 ms SOA). As the presentation rate increased, both adults and 4-month-olds showed an MMN response that decreased in latency, but was unaffected in amplitude. As the magnitude of the pitch change increased, MMN increased in amplitude. On the other hand, only a broad positive mismatch response was seen in 2-month-olds. As the presentation rate increased, 2-month-olds’ responses to standard tones decreased in amplitude while their responses to deviant tones were unaffected. The magnitude of the pitch change did not affect 2-month-olds’ responses. These results suggest that pitch is processed differently in auditory cortex by 2-month-olds and 4-month-olds, and that a cortical change-detection mechanism for pitch discrimination similar to that of adults emerges between 2 and 4 months of age.     

Early integration of vowel and pitch processing: A mismatch negativity study

ObjectiveSeveral studies have explored the processing specificity of music and speech, but only a few have addressed the processing autonomy of their fundamental components: pitch and phonemes. Here, we examined the additivity of the mismatch negativity (MMN) indexing the early interactions between vowels and pitch when sung.MethodsEvent-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants heard frequent sung vowels and rare stimuli deviating in pitch only, in vowel only, or in both pitch and vowel. The task was to watch a silent movie while ignoring the sounds.ResultsAll three types of deviants elicited both an MMN and a P3a ERP component. The observed MMNs were of similar amplitude for the three types of deviants and the P3a was larger for double deviants. The MMNs to deviance in vowel and deviance in pitch were not additive.ConclusionsThe underadditivity of the MMN responses suggests that vowel and pitch differences are processed by interacting neural networks.SignificanceThe results indicate that vowel and pitch are processed as integrated units, even at a pre-attentive level. Music-processing specificity thus rests on more complex dimensions of music and speech.     

Visual processing in pure alexia: A case study

Whether pure alexia is a selective disorder that affects reading only, or if it reflects a more general visual disturbance, is highly debated. We have investigated the selectivity of visual deficits in a pure alexic patient (NN) using a combination of psychophysical measures, mathematical modelling and more standard experimental paradigms. NN's naming and categorization of line drawings were normal with regards to both errors and reaction times (RTs). Psychophysical experiments revealed that NN's recognition of single letters at fixation was clearly impaired, and recognition of single digits was also affected. His visual apprehension span was markedly reduced for letters and digits. His reduced visual processing capacity was also evident when reporting letters from words. In an object decision task with fragmented pictures, NN's performance was abnormal. Thus, even in a pure alexic patient with intact recognition of line drawings, we find evidence of a general visual deficit not selective to letters or words. This finding is important because it raises the possibility that other pure alexics might have similar non-selective impairments when tested thoroughly. We argue that the general visual deficit in NN can be accounted for in terms of inefficient build-up of sensory representations, and that this low level deficit can explain the pattern of spared and impaired abilities in this patient.     

Electrophysiological correlates of non-symbolic numerical magnitude processing in children: joining the dots

Whether and in what way enumeration processes differ for small and large sets of objects is still a matter of debate. In order to shed light on this issue, EEG data were obtained from 60 normally developing elementary school children. Adopting a standard non-symbolic numerical comparison paradigm allowed us to manipulate numerical distance between stimulus arrays for different quantity ranges, i.e. the subitizing, counting and estimation ranges. In line with the existing literature, the amplitudes of parietal positive going ERP components showed systematic effects of numerical distance, which did not depend on set size. In contrast to the similarities in surface distribution of electrophysiological activity across all number ranges, applying source localization we found distance related current density effects in inferior parietal processing systems to be similar for all numerical ranges, there was, however, considerable variation in the involvement of medial parietal and lateral occipital regions. The precuneus, which is known to be involved in visual imagery, showed distance effects exclusively for numerical comparisons on large set sizes. In contrast, the processing of small quantities and stimulus arrays arranged into canonical patterns relied on lateral occipital areas that are linked to higher-level shape recognition. These findings suggest, on the one hand, that for explicit numerical decisions an involvement of domain-specific resources does not depend on quantity features of the visual input. On the other hand, it seems that the recruitment of mediating perceptual systems differs between the apprehension of small quantities and the enumeration of large sets of objects.     

Autosomal recessive congenital cerebellar atrophy A clinical and neuropsychological study

Congenital cerebellar atrophy associated with a non-progressive cerebellar syndrome and mild cognitive retardation is described in seven cases, four of them familial. Their occurrence is consistent with an autosomal recessive inheritance. Clinical and neuroimaging data seem to exclude supratentorial changes. Even though it is not possible to definitely rule out a possible role of the forebrain in determining the mental defect, the neuropsychological study supplies arguments stressing the relationship between cerebellar defect and cognitive development.     

Specialized neural dynamics for verbal and tonal memory: fMRI evidence in congenital amusia

Behavioral and neuropsychological studies have suggested that tonal and verbal short‐term memory are supported by specialized neural networks. To date however, neuroimaging investigations have failed to confirm this hypothesis. In this study, we investigated the hypothesis of distinct neural resources for tonal and verbal memory by comparing typical nonmusician listeners to individuals with congenital amusia, who exhibit pitch memory impairments with preserved verbal memory. During fMRI, amusics and matched controls performed delayed‐match‐to‐sample tasks with tones and words and perceptual control tasks with the same stimuli. For tonal maintenance, amusics showed decreased activity in the right auditory cortex, inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and dorso‐lateral‐prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Moreover, they exhibited reduced right‐lateralized functional connectivity between the auditory cortex and the IFG during tonal encoding and between the IFG and the DLPFC during tonal maintenance. In contrasts, amusics showed no difference compared with the controls for verbal memory, with activation in the left IFG and left fronto‐temporal connectivity. Critically, we observed a group‐by‐material interaction in right fronto‐temporal regions: while amusics recruited these regions less strongly for tonal memory than verbal memory, control participants showed the reversed pattern (tonal > verbal). By benefitting from the rare condition of amusia, our findings suggest specialized cortical systems for tonal and verbal short‐term memory in the human brain.     

Altered auditory processing in patients with panic disorder: A pilot study

Abstract

Objectives. Clinical and electrophysiological studies suggest that panic disorder (PD) patients show disturbed response inhibition to sensory stimuli. Thus, habituation of neuronal activation after repeated sine tone stimulation was assessed by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in patients with PD. Methods. Twenty patients with PD and 20 age- and gender-matched healthy controls were assessed by 3T fMRI for auditory habituation. During three stimulation cycles of digitally generated pulsed (ν=5 Hz) 800-Hz sine tones alternating with silent periods, activation of the auditory cortex and other anxiety- or sensory integration-related regions was assessed. Brain activation was further analyzed dependent on functional serotonin transporter (5-HTT) gene variation (5-HTTLPR). Results. PD patients demonstrated an extended brain activity in the first stimulation block, which normalized during the second stimulation cycle. A positive correlation with anxiety measures (HAMA) and an increased activity of distinct anxiety- or sensory integration-related areas (e.g., BA 22, BA 10) were seen during the third block of auditory stimulation. There was a significant interaction of left amygdala activation and the 5-HTTLPR S allele. Conclusions. Our results support the hypothesis of an aberrant processing of sensory information in PD patients. This phenomenon may underlie an enhanced responsiveness to anxiety-relevant or irrelevant stimuli possibly increasing PD vulnerability.     

Effects of cognitive-behavioral music therapy on fatigue in patients in a blood and marrow transplantation unit: A mixed-method pilot study

Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is an under-treated condition frequently experienced by cancer patients, which can negatively affect wellbeing during and after hospitalization. The purpose of this mixed-method pilot study was to determine if and how cognitive-behavioral music therapy (CBMT) might reduce fatigue in hospitalized patients in an adult blood and marrow transplant (BMT) unit. The researchers measured the effects of CBMT on five aspects of participant fatigue using a convergent parallel mixed-method design. The participants (N = 11) were randomly assigned to experimental or wait-list control conditions and completed the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (Smets, Garssen, Bonke, & De Haes, 1995) at pre- and posttest. The experimental participants completed a semi-structured interview prior to hospital discharge. The quantitative results indicated no significant between-group differences regarding fatigue. However, the experimental participants tended to have decreases in the mean fatigue scores from pre- to posttest, whereas the control participants had increases in the mean fatigue scores from pre- to posttest. The qualitative data tended to support the quantitative data and indicated that CBMT: (a) cognitively influenced fatigue by increasing motivation and self-efficacy, (b) affectively influenced fatigue by promoting relaxation and restful states, and (c) represented a meaningful, unique, and holistic service for hospitalized BMT patients. CBMT may be an effective intervention regarding various aspects of fatigue in hospitalized BMT patients. Because of the small sample size, the results should be interpreted with caution. The limitations of the study, implications for clinical practice, and suggestions for future research are provided.     

Number processing and basal ganglia dysfunction: a single case study

Numerical processing has never been investigated in a case of Fahr's disease (FD) and only rarely in cases of basal ganglia dysfunction. The study describes the cognitive decline of a pre-morbidly high-functioning patient (medical doctor) affected by FD and his difficulties in number processing. A MRI scan revealed bilateral calcifications in the basal ganglia and a brain PET showed a massive reduction of glucose metabolism in the basal ganglia and both frontal lobes, but no other brain abnormalities. The patient's cognitive deficits included impairments in problem solving, in cognitive set shifting and in mental flexibility, as well as in verbal memory. These deficits are attributed to the disruption of the dorsolateral prefrontal circuit involving the basal ganglia. In number processing, the patient showed a severe deficit in the retrieval of multiplication facts, deficits in all tasks of numerical problem solving and in the execution of complex procedures. Importantly, he also showed a dense deficit in conceptual knowledge, which concerned all test conditions and all operations. The findings confirm the predictions of the triple code model in so far, as a disruption of cortico-subcortical loops involving the basal-ganglia may lead to specific deficits in fact retrieval. However, no verbal deficit, as assumed in the triple code model and reported in similar cases, could be observed. The present findings further add to current knowledge on numerical processing, showing how fronto-executive dysfunction may disrupt conceptual understanding of arithmetic. This study shows that not only parietal lesions may lead to severe deficits in conceptual understanding, but that basal ganglia lesions leading to frontal dysfunction may have a devastating effect.     

Functional connectivity during language processing in acute cocaine withdrawal: A pilot study

The performance of two groups of patients with semantic dementia (SD), with predominant right (SDR) and left temporal lobe atrophy (SDL), was contrasted with that of cases with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) on a range of standard episodic memory tasks. While the SDL group achieved a good score on a composite visual, but not a verbal, episodic memory measure, the AD and SDR groups were equivalently impaired at visual and verbal memory. The SD, but not the AD, groups were, by definition, impaired on simple tests of semantic memory. Standard verbal episodic memory tests, therefore, failed to discriminate patients with SD from those with probable AD and even visual memory tests may result in misclassification of SDR cases.     

A developmental fMRI study of nonsymbolic numerical and spatial processing

This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study systematically investigates whether there is a neurofunctional overlap of nonsymbolic numerical and spatial cognition in (intra)parietal regions in children and adults. The study also explores the association between finger use and (nonsymbolic) number processing across development. Twenty-four healthy individuals (12 children, 12 adults) were asked to make nonsymbolic numerical and spatial (experimental tasks) as well as color discriminations (control task). Using identical stimulus material across the three tasks disentangled nonsymbolic number representations from general attentional mechanisms, visual-spatial processing and response selection requirements. In both age groups, behavioral distance effects were obtained upon processing numerical (but not spatial and/or color) stimuli. Baseline imaging effects revealed age-dependent, partly overlapping activations of nonsymbolic numerical and spatial processing in the right posterior superior parietal lobe (PSPL) in adults only. Interestingly, regions more activated in children relative to adults were centred on bilateral supramarginal gyrus (SMG) and lateral portions of the anterior intraparietal sulcus (IPS), further extending to adjacent right post- and precentral gyrus, the latter of which has been reported to support grasping previously (Simon et al., 2002). Overall, our results are first evidence for an age-dependent neurofunctional link between areas supporting finger use and nonsymbolic number processing and furthermore, might be suggestive of a special role of fingers for the development of number magnitude representations and early arithmetic.     

Modularity in rehabilitation of working memory: A single-case study

The objective of the present study was to assess the specificity of rehabilitation on different subdomains of working memory. A 38-year-old female with chronic (4?years) stroke suffered from an impairment of the three subdomains of working memory (modality-specific storage systems for verbal and visuo-spatial information and the central executive). She was given an experimental rehabilitation programme, using a multiple-baseline across behaviour design. After two baseline measures three months apart, the first training stage focused on the phonological loop, the second on the visuo-spatial sketchpad, and the third on central executive functions. Verbal aspects of working memory improved significantly after the first training stage, while visuo-spatial tests improved after the second training stage. Central executive functions improved mainly after the third training stage. Modularity effects were not as pronounced for less specific ecological outcome measures, such as the Working Memory Questionnaire, which improved throughout the trial, irrespective of the training condition. This case study suggests that there are both domain-specific and generalisation effects in rehabilitation of working memory, and that rehabilitation should be adapted and tailored to each individual patient's impairments.