Effects of musical experience on different components of MEG responses elicited by sequential piano-tones and chords

Magnetoencephalographic (MEG) studies have revealed enhancement of neural activity of the N1m response of auditory evoked fields in long-term trained musicians, reflecting neuroplastic modification of the representation of the auditory cortex. In contrast, the amplitude of the P2 response of auditory evoked potentials is modified by musical experience, with no alteration of N1. Here, we performed a comprehensive MEG study using stimulation of successive musical-instrument tones to examine how the neural activities of different MEG responses are modified in long-term experienced musicians who commenced musical lessons at ages of approximately 5 years and had continued to practice. The dipole moment of the P2m response occurring at 160-180 ms was significantly enlarged in musicians compared with that in individuals who had not received musical lessons. The enlargement was found for the dipole moment of N1m occurring at 100-120 ms in a restricted condition but not for the moment of P1m at 50-60 ms. Furthermore, the dipole moment of P2m for successive stimuli, normalized by the moment for the first stimulus, was significantly larger for chord tones than single tones and was significantly larger in the musicians than controls. These results suggest that the P2m response is susceptible to be modified by musical training in a period of neural maturation, with a short refractory period of neural activity for the auditory input of composite tones. The P2m activity may be specialized to the processing of multifrequency sounds, such as musical timbre consisting of abundant harmonics.