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fMRI Mapping of Brain Activity Associated with the Vocal Production of Consonant and Dissonant Intervals
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Published on: May 23, 2017

Finding your voice: a singing lesson from functional imaging.

Sarah J Wilson1, David F Abbott, Dean Lusher

  • 1Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Australia. sarahw@unimelb.edu.au

Human Brain Mapping
|December 17, 2010
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Singing and language share brain networks, but expertise changes this. Expert singers decouple from language networks for more tuneful vocal performances, suggesting a neurological basis for finding one's singing voice.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Science
  • Music Cognition

Background:

  • Vocal singing and language share features, but their neural underpinnings, especially at higher cortical levels, remain unclear.
  • The influence of singing expertise on these shared neural systems is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the extent of neural overlap between covert vocal singing and language processing.
  • To examine how singing expertise modulates the engagement of these shared brain systems.

Main Methods:

  • Functional neuroimaging (fMRI) was used to study 26 participants with varying singing abilities.
  • Participants performed two tasks: covert generative language and covert vocal singing of a familiar song.

Main Results:

  • Neural networks for singing and language are closely located, with overlapping cortical regions.
  • Nonexpert singers showed greater engagement of language networks during singing, correlating with less tuneful performance.
  • Expert singers exhibited more unilateral brain activation and reduced right frontal lobe engagement, indicating greater independence from language networks.

Conclusions:

  • Singing expertise promotes the decoupling of singing from the language network, leading to more tuneful performances.
  • The practice of 'finding your singing voice' may be neurologically mediated by altering the coupling between singing and language systems.