Music-experience-related and musical-error-dependent activations in the brain

Although music is one of human-unique traits such as language, its neural basis for cortical organization has not been well understood. In the present functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we tested an error-detection task with different types of musical error (pitch, tempo, stress, and articulation conditions) and examined three groups of secondary school students having different levels of music experience. First, we observed distinct activation patterns under these music conditions, such that specific activations under the pitch condition were consistently replicated for all tested groups in the auditory areas, as well as in the left language areas under the articulation condition. Second, music-experience-related activations were observed in multiple regions, including the right sensorimotor area under the pitch condition, as well as in the right premotor cortex under the articulation condition. Indeed, the right homologs of the language areas were specifically activated under the stress and articulation conditions. Third, activations specific to the group with the highest proficiency in music were observed under the tempo condition mostly in the right regions. These results demonstrate the existence of music-related signatures in the brain activations, including both universal and experience-related mechanisms.