Electromagnetic Correlates of Musical Expertise in Processing of Tone Patterns

Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we investigated the influence of long term musical training on the processing of partly imagined tone patterns (imagery condition) compared to the same perceived patterns (perceptual condition). The magnetic counterpart of the mismatch negativity (MMNm) was recorded and compared between musicians and non-musicians in order to assess the effect of musical training on the detection of deviants to tone patterns. The results indicated a clear MMNm in the perceptual condition as well as in a simple pitch oddball (control) condition in both groups. However, there was no significant mismatch response in either group in the imagery condition despite above chance behavioral performance in the task of detecting deviant tones. The latency and the laterality of the MMNm in the perceptual condition differed significantly between groups, with an earlier MMNm in musicians, especially in the left hemisphere. In contrast the MMNm amplitudes did not differ significantly between groups. The behavioral results revealed a clear effect of long-term musical training in both experimental conditions. The obtained results represent new evidence that the processing of tone patterns is faster and more strongly lateralized in musically trained subjects, which is consistent with other findings in different paradigms of enhanced auditory neural system functioning due to long-term musical training

Processing of Abstract Rule Violations in Audition

The ability to encode rules and to detect rule-violating events outside the focus of attention is vital for adaptive behavior. Our brain recordings reveal that violations of abstract auditory rules are processed even when the sounds are unattended. When subjects performed a task related to the sounds but not to the rule, rule violations impaired task performance and activated a network involving supratemporal, parietal and frontal areas although none of the subjects acquired explicit knowledge of the rule or became aware of rule violations. When subjects tried to behaviorally detect rule violations, the brain's automatic violation detection facilitated intentional detection. This shows the brain's capacity for abstraction – an important cognitive function necessary to model the world. Our study provides the first evidence for the task-independence (i.e. automaticity) of this ability to encode abstract rules and for its immediate consequences for subsequent mental processes

Sensory theories of developmental dyslexia: three challenges for research.

Recent years have seen the publication of a range of new theories suggesting that the basis of dyslexia might be sensory dysfunction. In this Opinion article, the evidence for and against several prominent sensory theories of dyslexia is closely scrutinized. Contrary to the causal claims being made, my analysis suggests that many proposed sensory deficits might result from the effects of reduced reading experience on the dyslexic brain. I therefore suggest that longitudinal studies of sensory processing, beginning in infancy, are required to successfully identify the neural basis of developmental dyslexia. Such studies could have a powerful impact on remediation.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available from NPG at http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v16/n1/abs/nrn3836.html

Impaired non-speech auditory processing at a pre-reading age is a risk-factor for dyslexia but not a predictor: An ERP study

Impaired auditory sensitivity to amplitude rise time (ART) has been suggested to be a primary deficit in developmental dyslexia. The present study investigates whether impaired ART-sensitivity at a pre-reading age precedes and predicts later emerging reading problems in a sample of Dutch children. An oddball paradigm, with a deviant that differed from the standard stimulus in ART, was administered to 41-month-old children (30 genetically at-risk for developmental dyslexia and 14 controls) with concurrent EEG measurement. A second deviant that differed from the standard stimulus in frequency served as a control deviant. Grade two reading scores were used to divide the at-risks in a typical-reading and a dyslexic subgroup. We found that both ART- and frequency processing were related to later reading skill. We however also found that irrespective of reading level, the at-risks in general showed impaired basic auditory processing when compared to controls and that it was impossible to discriminate between the at-risk groups on basis of both auditory measures. A relatively higher quality of early expressive syntactic skills in the typical-reading at-risk group might indicate a protective factor against negative effects of impaired auditory processing on reading development. Based on these results we argue that ART- and frequency-processing measures, although they are related to reading skill, lack the power to be considered single-cause predictors of developmental dyslexia. More likely, they are genetically driven risk factors that may add to cumulative effects on processes that are critical for learning to read

Evaluation of results from genome-wide studies of language and reading in a novel independent dataset

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