Dataset Information

Neuroarchitecture of verbal and tonal working memory in nonmusicians and musicians.

ABSTRACT: Working memory (WM) for auditory information has been thought of as a unitary system, but whether WM for verbal and tonal information relies on the same or different functional neuroarchitectures has remained unknown. This fMRI study examines verbal and tonal WM in both nonmusicians (who are trained in speech, but not in music) and highly trained musicians (who are trained in both domains). The data show that core structures of WM are involved in both tonal and verbal WM (Broca's area, premotor cortex, pre-SMA/SMA, left insular cortex, inferior parietal lobe), although with significantly different structural weightings, in both nonmusicians and musicians. Additionally, musicians activated specific subcomponents only during verbal (right insular cortex) or only during tonal WM (right globus pallidus, right caudate nucleus, and left cerebellum). These results reveal the existence of two WM systems in musicians: A phonological loop supporting rehearsal of phonological information, and a tonal loop supporting rehearsal of tonal information. Differences between groups for tonal WM, and between verbal and tonal WM within musicians, were mainly related to structures involved in controlling, programming and planning of actions, thus presumably reflecting differences in action-related sensorimotor coding of verbal and tonal information.

SUBMITTER: Schulze K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6870416 | biostudies-literature | 2011 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Neuroarchitecture of verbal and tonal working memory in nonmusicians and musicians.

Schulze Katrin K Zysset Stefan S Mueller Karsten K Friederici Angela D AD Koelsch Stefan S

Human brain mapping 20110501 5

Working memory (WM) for auditory information has been thought of as a unitary system, but whether WM for verbal and tonal information relies on the same or different functional neuroarchitectures has remained unknown. This fMRI study examines verbal and tonal WM in both nonmusicians (who are trained in speech, but not in music) and highly trained musicians (who are trained in both domains). The data show that core structures of WM are involved in both tonal and verbal WM (Broca's area, premotor ...[more]

PMID: 20533560

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Project description:Verbal working memory is one of the most studied non-motor functions with robust cerebellar involvement. While the superior cerebellum (lobule VI) has been associated with articulatory control, the inferior cerebellum (lobule VIIIa) has been linked to phonological storage. The present study was aimed to elucidate the differential roles of these regions by investigating whether the cerebellum might contribute to verbal working memory via predictions based on sequence learning/detection. 19 healthy adult subjects completed an fMRI-based Sternberg task which included repeating and novel letter sequences that were phonologically similar or dissimilar. It was hypothesized that learning a repeating sequence of study letters would reduce phonological storage demand and associated right inferior cerebellar activations and that this effect would be modulated by phonological similarity of the study letters. Specifically, while increased phonological storage demand due to high phonological similarity was expected to be reflected in increased right inferior cerebellar activations for similar relative to dissimilar study letters, the reduction in activation for repeating relative to novel sequences was expected to be more profound for phonologically similar than for dissimilar study letters, especially at higher memory load. Results confirmed the typical effects of cognitive load (5 vs. 2 study letters) and phonological similarity in several cerebellar and neocortical brain regions as well as in behavioral data (accuracy and response time). Importantly, activations in superior and inferior cerebellar regions were differentially modulated as a function of similarity and sequence novelty, indicating that particularly lobule VIIIa may contribute to verbal working memory by generating predictions of letter sequences that reduce the likelihood of phonological loop failure before stored items need to be retrieved. The present study is consistent with other investigations that support prediction, which can be based on sequence learning or detection, as an overarching cerebellar function.

Dataset Information

Neuroarchitecture of verbal and tonal working memory in nonmusicians and musicians.

Publications

Neuroarchitecture of verbal and tonal working memory in nonmusicians and musicians.

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