Probabilistic diffusion tractography reveals improvement of structural network in musicians

Musicians experience a large amount of information transfer and integration of complex sensory, motor, and auditory processes when training and playing musical instruments. Therefore, musicians are a useful model in which to investigate neural adaptations in the brain.

Here, based on diffusion-weighted imaging, probabilistic tractography was used to determine the architecture of white matter anatomical networks in musicians and non-musicians. Furthermore, the features of the white matter networks were analyzed using graph theory.

Small-world properties of the white matter network were observed in both groups. Compared with non-musicians, the musicians exhibited significantly increased connectivity strength in the left and right supplementary motor areas, the left calcarine fissure and surrounding cortex and the right caudate nucleus, as well as a significantly larger weighted clustering coefficient in the right olfactory cortex, the left medial superior frontal gyrus, the right gyrus rectus, the left lingual gyrus, the left supramarginal gyrus, and the right pallidum. Furthermore, there were differences in the node betweenness centrality in several regions. However, no significant differences in topological properties were observed at a global level.

We illustrated preliminary findings to extend the network level understanding of white matter plasticity in musicians who have had long-term musical training. These structural, network-based findings may indicate that musicians have enhanced information transmission efficiencies in local white matter networks that are related to musical training.