Musical Training and Executive Functions

Learning and performing music draws on a host of cognitive abilities. One likely aspect of cognition that may be related to musical training is executive function. To date, many studies have investigated this relationship; however, results from such studies are mixed and difficult to compare. In part, this is because most studies look at only one specific cognitive process, and even studies looking at the same process use different experimental tasks. The current study addresses these issues by administering a well-validated EF battery of multiple tasks tapping each EF component (Friedman et al., 2008) and a comprehensive measure of musical training (Müllensiefen, Gingras, Musil, & Stewart, 2014) to obtain reliable measures of individual differences in EF and musical experience. Results suggest that there is positive relationship between musical training and performance on updating tasks, but this relationship is not observed with performance on inhibition or shifting tasks

Towards a Comprehensive Model of Musical Ability

Over the past century, multiple tests measuring musical ability have been developed, and research has been investigating individual differences in musical ability to answer questions about the components of musical ability and their dissociations in amusic patients, the innate vs. acquired nature of musical skill, and the potential transfer from musical training to other abilities. However, there has been little consensus on what exactly constitutes musical ability and how to best measure this construct. Previous research has used a variety of tasks assessing mainly perceptual skills (e.g., same/different judgments in sequentially presented melodies), and outcomes from these tasks range from single indices (e.g., pitch ability) to composite scores from multiple tasks (e.g., pitch, rhythm, loudness, timbre). The current study uses individual differences data from 15 representative musical ability tasks (including perception and production measures) to assess the unity and diversity of musical ability, and uses the resulting comprehensive latent measure of musical ability to evaluate previously theorized links between musical ability and individual differences in musical experience, working memory, intelligence, personality factors, and socio-economic status. Results from latent variable model comparisons suggest that musical ability is best represented by related but separate pitch, timing, perception, and production factors. Consistent with previous research, a latent measure of musical ability was positively related to musical training, working memory, and intelligence; in contrast, musical ability was not related to openness to experience or socio-economic status

What is "musical ability" and how do we measure it?

There is little consensus on what exactly constitutes musical ability and how to best measure it. Past research has used various tasks; most commonly assessing perceptual skills (e.g., same/different judgments in sequentially presented melodies), but also sometimes production tasks (e.g., singing a series of pitches or tapping along with a musical sequence). Outcome measures have ranged from single indices (e.g., "pitch ability") to composite scores from multiple tasks (e.g., pitch, rhythm, loudness, timbre, etc.). To date, it remains unclear how these different measures/scores relate to one another, limiting the ability to generalize across tasks and results. To address these issues, we assessed 165 participants' performance on 15 representative musical ability tasks to model the unity and diversity of musical abilities. Latent variable model comparisons suggest that musical ability is best represented by related but separable pitch, timing, perception, and production factors

Processing structure in language and music: A case for shared reliance on cognitive control

The relationship between structural processing in music and language has received increasing interest in the last several years, spurred by the influential Shared Syntactic Integration Resource Hypothesis (SSIRH; Patel, 2003). According to this resource-sharing framework, music and language rely on separable syntactic representations but recruit shared cognitive resources to integrate these representations into evolving structures. The SSIRH is supported by findings of interactions between structural manipulations in music and language. However, other recent evidence suggests that such interactions can also arise with non-structural manipulations, and some recent neuroimaging studies report largely non-overlapping neural regions involved in processing musical and linguistic structure. These conflicting results raise the question of exactly what shared (and distinct) resources underlie musical and linguistic structural processing. This paper suggests that one shared resource is prefrontal cortical mechanisms of cognitive control, which are recruited to detect and resolve conflict that occurs when expectations are violated and interpretations must be revised. By this account, musical processing involves not just the incremental processing and integration of musical elements as they occur, but also the incremental generation of musical predictions and expectations, which must sometimes be overridden and revised in light of evolving musical input

Quinolizidine alkaloid biosynthesis in lupins and prospects for grain quality improvement

Quinolizidine alkaloids (QAs) are toxic secondary metabolites found within the genus Lupinus, some species of which are commercially important grain legume crops including Lupinus angustifolius (narrow-leafed lupin, NLL), L. luteus (yellow lupin), L. albus (white lupin), and L. mutabilis (pearl lupin), with NLL grain being the most largely produced of the four species in Australia and worldwide. While QAs offer the plants protection against insect pests, the accumulation of QAs in lupin grain complicates its use for food purposes as QA levels must remain below the industry threshold (0.02%), which is often exceeded. It is not well understood what factors cause grain QA levels to exceed this threshold. Much of the early work on QA biosynthesis began in the 1970– 1980s, with many QA chemical structures well-characterized and lupin cell cultures and enzyme assays employed to identify some biosynthetic enzymes and pathway intermediates. More recently, two genes associated with these enzymes have been characterized, however, the QA biosynthetic pathway remains only partially elucidated. Here, we review the research accomplished thus far concerning QAs in lupin and consider some possibilities for further elucidation and manipulation of the QA pathway in lupin crops, drawing on examples from model alkaloid species. One breeding strategy for lupin is to produce plants with high QAs in vegetative tissues while low in the grain in order to confer insect resistance to plants while keeping grain QA levels within industry regulations. With the knowledge achieved on alkaloid biosynthesis in other plant species in recent years, and the recent development of genomic and transcriptomic resources for NLL, there is considerable scope to facilitate advances in our knowledge of QAs, leading to the production of improved lupin crops. © 2017 Frick, Kamphuis, Siddique, Singh and Foley

Neuroprotection by adenosine in the brain: From A1 receptor activation to A2A receptor blockade

Adenosine is a neuromodulator that operates via the most abundant inhibitory adenosine A1 receptors (A1Rs) and the less abundant, but widespread, facilitatory A2ARs. It is commonly assumed that A1Rs play a key role in neuroprotection since they decrease glutamate release and hyperpolarize neurons. In fact, A1R activation at the onset of neuronal injury attenuates brain damage, whereas its blockade exacerbates damage in adult animals. However, there is a down-regulation of central A1Rs in chronic noxious situations. In contrast, A2ARs are up-regulated in noxious brain conditions and their blockade confers robust brain neuroprotection in adult animals. The brain neuroprotective effect of A2AR antagonists is maintained in chronic noxious brain conditions without observable peripheral effects, thus justifying the interest of A2AR antagonists as novel protective agents in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, ischemic brain damage and epilepsy. The greater interest of A2AR blockade compared to A1R activation does not mean that A1R activation is irrelevant for a neuroprotective strategy. In fact, it is proposed that coupling A2AR antagonists with strategies aimed at bursting the levels of extracellular adenosine (by inhibiting adenosine kinase) to activate A1Rs might constitute the more robust brain neuroprotective strategy based on the adenosine neuromodulatory system. This strategy should be useful in adult animals and especially in the elderly (where brain pathologies are prevalent) but is not valid for fetus or newborns where the impact of adenosine receptors on brain damage is different

Searches for a heavy scalar boson H decaying to a pair of 125 GeV Higgs bosons hh or for a heavy pseudoscalar boson A decaying to Zh, in the final states with h -> tau tau

Peer reviewe

Individual differences in musical training and executive functions: A latent variable approach

Learning and performing music draw on a host of cognitive abilities, and previous research postulates that musicians might have advantages in related cognitive processes. One such aspect of cognition that may be related to musical training is executive functions (EFs), a set of top-down processes that regulate behavior and cognition according to task demands. Previous studies investigating the link between musical training and EFs have yielded mixed results and are difficult to compare. In part, this is because most studies look at only one specific cognitive process, and even studies looking at the same process use different experimental tasks. Furthermore, most correlational studies use different categorizations of “musician” and “non-musician” for comparisons, so generalizing findings is difficult. The current study provides a more comprehensive assessment of how individual differences in musical training relate to latent measures of three separable aspects of EFs. We administered a well-validated EF battery containing multiple tasks tapping EF components of inhibition, shifting, and working memory updating (Friedman et al., 2008) and a comprehensive, continuous measure of musical training and sophistication (Müllensiefen et al., 2014). Musical training correlated with some individual EF tasks involving inhibition and working memory updating, but not individual tasks involving shifting. However, musical training only predicted the latent variable of working memory updating, but not latent variables of inhibition or shifting after controlling for IQ, socioeconomic status, and handedness. Although these data are correlational, they nonetheless suggest that musical experience places particularly strong demands specifically on working memory updating processes

Musical Training: Contributions to Executive Function

This is a preprint of a chapter on musical training and executive function to appear in "An Integrative Approach to Cognitive and Working Memory Training: Perspectives from Psychology, Neuroscience, and Human Development" edited by M. Bunting, J. Novick, M. Dougherty, and R. W. Engle