CiteULike is a free online bibliography manager. Register and you can start organising your references online.

The musician's brain: functional imaging of amateurs and professionals during performance and imagery. Export

Neuroimage, Vol. 20, No. 3. (November 2003), pp. 1817-1829.

Citation Format

[Posts]

View FullText article


wellnair's tags for this article

co-activation fmri instrument motion piano

X Reviews [Write a review of this article]

X Find related articles from these CiteULike users

X Find related articles with these CiteULike tags

X Posting History

X Abstract

We compared activation maps of professional and amateur violinists during actual and imagined performance of Mozart's violin concerto in G major (KV216). Execution and imagination of (left hand) fingering movements of the first 16 bars of the concerto were performed. Electromyography (EMG) feedback was used during imagery training to avoid actual movement execution and EMG recording was employed during the scanning of both executed and imagined musical performances. We observed that professional musicians generated higher EMG amplitudes during movement execution and showed focused cerebral activations in the contralateral primary sensorimotor cortex, the bilateral superior parietal lobes, and the ipsilateral anterior cerebellar hemisphere. The finding that professionals exhibited higher activity of the right primary auditory cortex during execution may reflect an increased strength of audio-motor associative connectivity. It appears that during execution of musical sequences in professionals, a higher economy of motor areas frees resources for increased connectivity between the finger sequences and auditory as well as somatosensory loops, which may account for the superior musical performance. Professionals also demonstrated more focused activation patterns during imagined musical performance. However, the auditory-motor loop was not involved during imagined performances in either musician group. It seems that the motor and auditory systems are coactivated as a consequence of musical training but only if one system (motor or auditory) becomes activated by actual movement execution or live musical auditory stimuli.


X BibTeX record

X RIS record


Privacy Statement | Terms & Conditions
CiteULike organises scholarly (or academic) papers or literature and provides bibliographic (which means it makes bibliographies) for universities and higher education establishments. It helps undergraduates and postgraduates. People studying for PhDs or in postdoctoral (postdoc) positions. The service is similar in scope to EndNote or RefWorks or any other reference manager like BibTeX, but it is a social bookmarking service for scientists and humanities researchers.