Music in learning and relearning : The life-span approach

During past decades, our knowledge about the brain functions and structures underlying music perception, performance, and emotions has accumulated relatively quickly. However, much less is known about the brain determinants underlying music learning and music rehabilitation. In my contribution, I will briefly illuminate the effects of music learning on brain functions in newborn infants, toddlers, and school-age children. Furthermore, I will discuss results from studies of music rehabilitation obtained from neurological patients. Taken together, these data indicate that music can be learnt across the whole life span, and, further, that it can be used in neurorehabilitation in a highly versatile manner.Peer reviewe

Pleasure of sad music – From descriptions toward explanations. : Comment on “An Integrative Review of the Enjoyment of Sadness Associated with Music” by Tuomas Eerola et al.

Non peer reviewe

Mismatch negativity : stimulation paradigms in past and in future

The maturation of 5-6-year-old children's auditory discrimination - indicated by the development of the auditory event-related-potentials (ERPs) - has not been previously studied in longitudinal settings. For the first time, we present here the results based on extensive dataset collected from 75 children. We followed the 5- to 6-year-olds for 20 months and measured their ERPs four times with the same multifeature paradigm with phonemic stimuli. The amplitude of the mismatch negativity (MMN) response increased during this time for vowel, vowel duration and frequency changes. Furthermore, the P3a component started to mature toward adult-like positivity for the vowel, intensity and frequency deviants and the late discriminative negativity (LDN) component decreased with age for vowel and intensity deviants. All the changes in the components seemed to happen during the second follow-up year, when Finnish children are taught letter symbols and other preliminary academic skills before going to school at the age of seven. Therefore, further studies are needed to clarify if these changes in the auditory discrimination are purely age-related or due to increasing linguistic knowledge of the children.Peer reviewe

Music as the Goal of Training and Means of Rehabilitation: Evidence From Brain Science

(Abstract to follow

Promises of Music in Education?

Learning in school is intended to help students master academic skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics, as well as to acquire knowledge about different subjects such as history, geography, biology, and so on. However, in the future, successful learning will be largely manifested by students' global and transferable skills, such as analytical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and social skills. Here we explore the promises of using music to support learning in the future. We review empirical evidence on the effects of music learning on neurocognitive development in children in formal and informal settings, in music interventions, and also in community settings. With this review, we wish to stimulate discussion about the roles that music could play in promoting learning in schools and elsewhere

The Interplay between Musical and Linguistic Aptitudes: A Review

According to prevailing views, brain organization is modulated by practice, e.g., during musical or linguistic training. Most recent results, using both neuropsychological tests and brain measures, revealed an intriguing connection between musical aptitude and second language linguistic abilities. A significant relationship between higher musical aptitude, better second language pronunciation skills, accurate chord discrimination ability, and more prominent sound-change-evoked brain activation in response to musical stimuli was found. Moreover, regular music practice may also have a modulatory effect on the brain’s linguistic organization and alter hemispheric functioning in those who have regularly practised music for years. These findings, together with their implications, will be introduced and elaborated in our review

Neurocognition of Major-Minor and Consonance-Dissonance

Peer reviewe

Planning music-based amelioration and training in infancy and childhood based on neural evidence

Music-based amelioration and training of the developing auditory system has a long tradition, and recent neuroscientific evidence supports using music in this manner. Here, we present the available evidence showing that various music-related activities result in positive changes in brain structure and function, becoming helpful for auditory cognitive processes in everyday life situations for individuals with typical neural development and especially for individuals with hearing, learning, attention, or other deficits that may compromise auditory processing. We also compare different types of music-based training and show how their effects have been investigated with neural methods. Finally, we take a critical position on the multitude of error sources found in amelioration and training studies and on publication bias in the field. We discuss some future improvements of these issues in the field of music-based training and their potential results at the neural and behavioral levels in infants and children for the advancement of the field and for a more complete understanding of the possibilities and significance of the training.Peer reviewe

Gene expression and functional studies on psoriatic epidermis

Psoriasis is a common skin disorder that is characterized by thickening of the most superficial layer of the skin, the epidermis, and accumulation of white blood cells, inflammation. The exact mechanism of how psoriasis develops is still unknown. Several gene expression studies have been conducted on psoriatic skin. Most of them, however, have focused on the expression in both the epidermis and dermis or were analyzed by microarrays. Here we used a novel approach to decipher the gene expression profile of the psoriatic skin, by utilizing a more specific and sensitive detection of transcripts by RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), implemented with an improved normalization method, and combined with samples that contain mainly the skin layer of interest: the epidermis. RNA-seq revealed more accurate expression profiles in different sample types that had varying amount of total mRNA per cell. Comparison with previous transcriptomics studies on psoriasis revealed that our approach provided more information about the transcriptional dysregulation in the epidermis. The expression profiling of epidermis highlighted the involvement of innate immunity and provided, for example, deeper understanding about the components of NOD-like receptor signaling pathway and inflammasome activation in keratinocytes. Some of the components have been associated with psoriasis in previous studies, yet the exact composition and activation mechanisms of inflammasomes have remained unclear. Our RNA-seq findings thus strengthen the role of keratinocytes as modulators of inflammation in the psoriatic lesions. The improved methods and focused analysis might help to pinpoint the most important pathways and functions, including broader knowledge in the involved components, in the psoriatic lesions. This, in turn, might improve the production of more specific treatments for psoriasis. The psoriasis candidate gene CCHCR1 is located in the major psoriasis predisposition locus PSORS1, contains a psoriasis-associated risk allele *WWCC, and its gene product is expressed by the basal keratinocytes of the epidermis and has been shown to have an effect on cell proliferation and differentiation. The gene has two different transcription start sites and is able to encode for a peptide with a longer N-terminus from the transcript 1, which, however, depends upon a SNP that encodes for either tryptophan or stop codon, therefore either enabling or disabling the production of the longer protein. Here we presented association of the stop codon-encoding SNP (named as *Iso3) with psoriasis in family trios. We detected that CCHCR1 localizes at the centrosome and P-bodies, and reported isoform-specific effects on the localization of the P-bodies. Our experiments exhibited haplotype-specific effects of CCHCR1 also on cytoskeletal organization and cell proliferation; functions relevant to the pathogenesis of psoriasis. Furthermore, our results suggest that CCHCR1 might function in EGFR-STAT3 signaling and innate immunity, which strengthens the role of innate immunity in psoriasis even further. In addition, RNA-seq revealed isoform- and haplotype-specific effects on the expression profiles of different CCHCR1 cell lines. Interestingly, the most dramatic changes in gene expressions were observed in the isoform 3 -overexpressing cells but also the Non-risk and Risk haplotypes had antagonistic effects. The observation that CCHCR1 influences multiple cell signaling pathways may result from its possible role as a centrosomal P-body protein, which suggests a role in post-transcriptional regulation as well as a role in the regulation of cell cycle. Its exact function in these cellular compartments and effect in psoriatic lesions remains to be studied further.Psoriasis on yleinen ihotauti, jolle on tyypillistä punertavat ja hilseilevät iholäikät eli leesiot, jotka aiheutuvat keratinosyyttien epänormaalista kasvusta ja erilaistumisesta sekä tulehdussolujen kerääntymisestä alueelle. Taudin perimmäinen syy ja molekyylibiologinen tausta tunnetaan kuitenkin huonosti. Psoriasisihon geeni-ilmentymistä on selvitetty DNA-mikrosirumenetelmällä useassa eri tutkimuksessa, joissa on yleensä tutkittu sekä orvaskeden (epidermis) että verinahan (dermis) muutoksia. Tässä käytimme uutta lähestymistapaa; mikrosirujen sijaan käytimme herkkää ja tehokasta RNA-sekvensointia sekä ihonäytteitä jotka koostuivat lähinnä ihon pintakerroksesta, kohdistaen näin tutkimuksemme epidermiksen geeni-ilmentymiseen. Verrattuna edellisiin psoriasistutkimuksiin, lähestymistapamme toi uutta tietoa erityisesti epidermiksen geeni-ilmentymisen muutoksista. Tuloksissa nousi erityisesti esille epidermiksen ja keratinosyyttien rooli luontaisessa immuniteetissä ja tulehdusreaktion säätelyssä. Uudet löydökset saattavat auttaa tunnistamaan psoriasisleesiossa aktivoituneita viallisia signalointireittejä, mikä puolestaan mahdollistaa entistä täsmällisempien hoitojen kehittelyn. Aiemmissa tutkimuksissa psoriasiksen tärkeimmällä alttiusalueella (PSORS1) sijaitsevasta CCHCR1-geenistä on tunnistettu psoriasikseen assosioituva riskimuoto *WWCC. CCHCR1:n tiedetään ilmentyvän epidermiksen keratinosyyteissä ja sen on osoitettu vaikuttavan solujen proliferaatioon sekä erilaistumiseen. Geenillä on kaksi eri transkription aloituskohtaa, joista toinen koodittaa N-terminukseltaan pidempää peptidiä. Tämän tuottuminen on kuitenkin riippuvainen SNP:stä, jonka kaksi eri alleelia mahdollistavat joko ainoastaan lyhyemmän (stop-kodoni, *Iso3) tai myös pidemmän (tryptofaani-kodoni) CCHCR1-muodon tuoton. Tutkimuksessa osoitimme *Iso3-alleelin assosioituvan psoriasikseen perheaineistossa. Funktionaalisissa tutkimuksissa havaitsimme että CCHCR1 paikantuu solun sentrosomiin ja isoformi-spesifisesti erityisiin mRNA:ta prosessoiviin soluelimiin (P-body). CCHCR1:llä havaittiin myös haplotyypistä riippuvia vaikutuksia solun tukirankaan ja solujen jakautumiseen; toimintoihin jotka liittyvät psoriasiksen patogeneesiin. Lisäksi tulokset viittaavat että CCHCR1 voisi vaikuttaa EGFR-STAT3 -signalointiin ja luontaiseen immuniteettiin. Havainto, että CCHCR1 vaikuttaa useisiin solun signalointireitteihin, saattaa johtua sen mahdollisesta roolista sentrosomaalisena P-body -proteiinina, mikä viittaa rooliin solusyklin sekä transkription säätelyssä. Sen tarkkaa toiminta näissä solun osissa ja vaikutus psoriasisihon epidermiksessä jää tutkittavaksi edelleen

Naturalistic music and dance : Cortical phase synchrony in musicians and dancers

Expertise in music has been investigated for decades and the results have been applied not only in composition, performance and music education, but also in understanding brain plasticity in a larger context. Several studies have revealed a strong connection between auditory and motor processes and listening to and performing music, and music imagination. Recently, as a logical next step in music and movement, the cognitive and affective neuro-sciences have been directed towards expertise in dance. To understand the versatile and overlapping processes during artistic stimuli, such as music and dance, it is necessary to study them with continuous naturalistic stimuli. Thus, we used long excerpts from the contemporary dance piece Carmen presented with and without music to professional dancers, musicians, and laymen in an EEG laboratory. We were interested in the cortical phase synchrony within each participant group over several frequency bands during uni- and multimodal processing. Dancers had strengthened theta and gamma synchrony during music relative to silence and silent dance, whereas the presence of music decreased systematically the alpha and beta synchrony in musicians. Laymen were the only group of participants with significant results related to dance. Future studies are required to understand whether these results are related to some other factor (such as familiarity to the stimuli), or if our results reveal a new point of view to dance observation and expertise.Peer reviewe