Researchers are exploring whether these ubiquitous fluorinated molecules might worsen infections or hamper vaccine effectiveness.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Dmitry Naumov.
-
Edited by Michael M. Merzenich, University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco, CA, and approved August 3, 2007 (received for review February 16, 2007)
Abstract
Musical training is known to modify cortical organization. Here, we show that such modifications extend to subcortical sensory structures and generalize to processing of speech. Musicians had earlier and larger brainstem responses than nonmusician controls to both speech and music stimuli presented in auditory and audiovisual conditions, evident as early as 10 ms after acoustic onset. Phase-locking to stimulus periodicity, which likely underlies perception of pitch, was enhanced in musicians and strongly correlated with length of musical practice. In addition, viewing videos of speech (lip-reading) and music (instrument being played) enhanced temporal and frequency encoding in the auditory brainstem, particularly in musicians. These findings demonstrate practice-related changes in the early sensory encoding of auditory and audiovisual information.
Footnotes
- ¶To whom correspondence should be addressed at: Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, Northwestern University, 2240 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208. E-mail: nkraus{at}northwestern.edu
-
Author contributions: G.M., M.S., and N.K. designed research; G.M. performed research; G.M. and E.S. analyzed data; and G.M., M.S., E.S., and N.K. wrote the paper.
-
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
-
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
- Abbreviations:
- FFR,
- frequency-following response;
- UA,
- unimodal acoustic;
- AV,
- audiovisual;
- UV,
- unimodal visual.
- © 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
Musicians have enhanced subcortical auditory and audiovisual processing of speech and music
Sign up for Article Alerts
Jump to section
You May Also be Interested in
Recent experiments and simulations are starting to answer some fundamental questions about how life came to be.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Radoslaw Lecyk.
Archaeologists have long tried to define the transition between the two time periods.
Image credit: Ceri Shipton.
Jonathon Yuly, David Beratan, and Peng Zhang investigate how electron bifurcation reactions work.
A study finds that giant pandas roll in horse manure to increase their cold tolerance.
Image credit: Fuwen Wei.