Karl Hartmann
Hannover Medical School, Germany
Title: A View into the Plastic Architecture of the Human Brain - Structural Adaptations in High Level Pianists -
Biography
Biography: Karl Hartmann
Abstract
The perception and integration of external stimuli lead to a constant, lifelong adaptation of the central nervous system. Functional adaptations lead to anatomic changes of gross brain morphology. Behavioural measurements reveal correlations between performance and changes in brain structure. Young, healthy musicians state an ideal group to study the principles of neuronal plasticity in vivo. With the complex process of integrating auditive, visual and sensory stimuli to form fine tuned movement patterns making music is a highly demanding, multimodal network task. Due to the bimanual dexterity the heterogenous age of commencement of musical training and the possibility of standardized measurements of motor performance via midi keyboards, pianists have been in the focus of research. We collected behavioural data, scale playing measurements of temporal precision and T1, DTI and Resting State 3T MRI Scans of 36 high-level pianists and an age matched control group. Voxel-based morphometry was used to analyze gray-matter differences at whole-brain level. Pianists compared to non-musicians showed significant volumetric effects in multiple cortical and subcortical structures. A higher gray matter (GM) volume was shown in the left superior temporal and bilateral lingual gyri, as well as in striatal areas as the bilateral putamen, hippocampus and amygdala and the right thalamus. Lower GM volume was shown in the supramarginal, superior temporal and postcentral gyri of the right hemisphere. Behaviourally, early-onset pianists showed higher temporal precision in their piano performance than late-onset pianists, especially in the left hand. Furthermore, early-onset of piano playing was associated with smaller GM volume in the right putamen and better piano performance, mainly in the left hand. For the first time the link between onset of musical practice, behavioural performance, and putaminal gray matter structure could be shown in a single large dataset of healthy young pianists. These results reveal a complex pattern of plastic effects showing increased GM volume in networks involved in reinforcement learning, while decrease of gray matter volume in networks related to sensorimotor control, auditory processing and score-reading.