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Stefan Koelsch

Publications and source records attributed to Stefan Koelsch.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Investigating emotion with music: an fMRI study.

The present study used pleasant and unpleasant music to evoke emotion and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to determine neural correlates of emotion processing. Unpleasant (permanently dissonant) music contrasted with pleasant (consonant) music showed activations of amygdala, hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, and temporal poles. These structures have previously been implicated in the emotional processing of stimuli with (negative) emotional valence; the present data show that a cerebral network comprising these structures can be activated during the perception of auditory (musical) information. Pleasant (contrasted to unpleasant) music showed activations of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG, inferior Brodmann's area (BA) 44, BA 45, and BA 46), the anterior superior insula, the ventral striatum, Heschl's gyrus, and the Rolandic operculum. IFG activations appear to reflect processes of music-syntactic analysis and working memory operations. Activations of Rolandic opercular areas possibly reflect the activation of mirror-function mechanisms during the perception of the pleasant tunes. Rolandic operculum, anterior superior insula, and ventral striatum may form a motor-related circuitry that serves the formation of (premotor) representations for vocal sound production during the perception of pleasant auditory information. In all of the mentioned structures, except the hippocampus, activations increased over time during the presentation of the musical stimuli, indicating that the effects of emotion processing have temporal dynamics; the temporal dynamics of emotion have so far mainly been neglected in the functional imaging literature.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2005

Towards a neural basis of music perception.

Music perception involves complex brain functions underlying acoustic analysis, auditory memory, auditory scene analysis, and processing of musical syntax and semantics. Moreover, music perception potentially affects emotion, influences the autonomic nervous system, the hormonal and immune systems, and activates (pre)motor representations. During the past few years, research activities on different aspects of music processing and their neural correlates have rapidly progressed. This article provides an overview of recent developments and a framework for the perceptual side of music processing. This framework lays out a model of the cognitive modules involved in music perception, and incorporates information about the time course of activity of some of these modules, as well as research findings about where in the brain these modules might be located.

Arousal↗
PubMed2005

Adults and children processing music: an fMRI study.

The present study investigates the functional neuroanatomy of music perception with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Three different subject groups were investigated to examine developmental aspects and effects of musical training: 10-year-old children with varying degrees of musical training, adults without formal musical training (nonmusicians), and adult musicians. Subjects made judgements on sequences that ended on chords that were music-syntactically either regular or irregular. In adults, irregular chords activated the inferior frontal gyrus, orbital frontolateral cortex, the anterior insula, ventrolateral premotor cortex, anterior and posterior areas of the superior temporal gyrus, the superior temporal sulcus, and the supramarginal gyrus. These structures presumably form different networks mediating cognitive aspects of music processing (such as processing of musical syntax and musical meaning, as well as auditory working memory), and possibly emotional aspects of music processing. In the right hemisphere, the activation pattern of children was similar to that of adults. In the left hemisphere, adults showed larger activations than children in prefrontal areas, in the supramarginal gyrus, and in temporal areas. In both adults and children, musical training was correlated with stronger activations in the frontal operculum and the anterior portion of the superior temporal gyrus.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2005

Neural substrates of processing syntax and semantics in music.

Growing evidence indicates that syntax and semantics are basic aspects of music. After the onset of a chord, initial music-syntactic processing can be observed at about 150-400 ms and processing of musical semantics at about 300-500 ms. Processing of musical syntax activates inferior frontolateral cortex, ventrolateral premotor cortex and presumably the anterior part of the superior temporal gyrus. These brain structures have been implicated in sequencing of complex auditory information, identification of structural relationships, and serial prediction. Processing of musical semantics appears to activate posterior temporal regions. The processes and brain structures involved in the perception of syntax and semantics in music have considerable overlap with those involved in language perception, underlining intimate links between music and language in the human brain.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2005

The effects of anesthetics on brain activity and cognitive function.

PURPOSE OF THIS REVIEW: This review presents an overview of recent findings related to changes in brain activity with increasing anesthesia mainly obtained with brain imaging and electrophysiological techniques in humans. RECENT FINDINGS: Recent studies have revealed that the brain as a whole is not affected to the same degree by anesthetics, but that specific brain regions (and particular cognitive processes mediated by these regions) are more sensitive to anesthesia and sedation than others. Inhibition of activity in multimodal association cortices (such as parietal and prefrontal association cortices) by sedative concentrations of anesthetics produces amnesia and attention deficits, whereas activity in unimodal cortices and in the thalamus remains largely unaffected by low doses of anesthetics. Activity in the midbrain reticular formation, thalamus, and unimodal cortices appears to be suppressed only by anesthetic concentrations causing unconsciousness. Besides those regional suppressive effects, anesthetics impair functional connections between neurons in distributed cortical and thalamocortical networks, which also contributes to the state of anesthesia. SUMMARY: Anesthetics produce changes in the patient's behavioral state by interacting with brain activity via at least two mechanisms: the dose-dependent global and regionally specific suppression of neuronal activity and the disruption of functional interactivity within distributed neural networks.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2005

Interaction between syntax processing in language and in music: an ERP Study.

The present study investigated simultaneous processing of language and music using visually presented sentences and auditorily presented chord sequences. Music-syntactically regular and irregular chord functions were presented synchronously with syntactically correct or incorrect words, or with words that had either a high or a low semantic cloze probability. Music-syntactically irregular chords elicited an early right anterior negativity (ERAN). Syntactically incorrect words elicited a left anterior negativity (LAN). The LAN was clearly reduced when words were presented simultaneously with music-syntactically irregular chord functions. Processing of high and low cloze-probability words as indexed by the N400 was not affected by the presentation of irregular chord functions. In a control experiment, the LAN was not affected by physically deviant tones that elicited a mismatch negativity (MMN). Results demonstrate that processing of musical syntax (as reflected in the ERAN) interacts with the processing of linguistic syntax (as reflected in the LAN), and that this interaction is not due to a general effect of deviance-related negativities that precede an LAN. Findings thus indicate a strong overlap of neural resources involved in the processing of syntax in language and music.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2005

Investigating the relationship of music and language in children: influences of musical training and language impairment.

Language and music are human universals involving perceptually discrete elements organized in hierarchically structured sequences. The set of principles governing the combination of these structural elements into sequences is known as syntax. A violation of expectancies concerning syntactic regularities may be reflected by two ERP components: the ERAN (early right anterior negativity) and the ELAN (early left anterior negativity). The ERAN is evoked by a violation of musical regularities, whereas the ELAN is linked to syntax processing in the language domain. There is evidence from adult data to suggest that both ERAN and ELAN are, at least partly, generated in the same brain regions. Therefore, it seems plausible to expect transfer effects between music and language due to shared processing resources. Moreover, the ERAN is larger in adults with formal musical training (musicians) than in those without, indicating that more specific representations of musical regularities lead to heightened musical expectancies. The aim of this study is to investigate these issues in child development. We conducted two experimental sessions with the same participants and compared children with and without musical training (11 years old) and children with or without language impairment (5 years old). In a music experiment, the reactions to chord sequences ending either with a (regular) tonic or with an (irregular) supertonic were compared. For a language experiment we used syntactically correct and incorrect sentences. Preliminary results show that an ERAN is present in both groups and appears to have a larger amplitude in musically trained children. In addition, there are indications of an enhanced negativity in response to a syntactic violation in the musically trained children. The relationship between the ERP components is, moreover, manifested in the finding that an ERAN is present in linguistically nonimpaired children at the age of 5 years but not in children with language impairment of the same age.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2005

Investigating emotion with music: neuroscientific approaches.

This article briefly reviews the few functional imaging studies conducted so far on the investigation of emotion with music. Basically, these studies showed involvement of limbic and paralimbic cerebral structures (such as amygdala, hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, temporal poles, insula, ventral striatum, orbitofronal, as well as cingulate cortex) during the processing of music with emotional valence (such as pleasant or unpleasant). The second part of this article highlights the role of unexpected musical events for the elicitation of emotional responses. Recent studies suggest that music-syntactically irregular chords elicit changes in electrodermal activity, and that such chords activate orbital frontolateral cortex, as well as the amygdala (that is, brain structures that have been implicated in emotion processing). The third part of this article mentions findings on the temporal dynamics of emotion (that is, changes in the physiological correlates of emotion processing over time). This issue has so far been mainly neglected in the functional imaging (and psychophysiological) literature.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2004

Pitch discrimination accuracy in musicians vs nonmusicians: an event-related potential and behavioral study.

Previously, professional violin players were found to automatically discriminate tiny pitch changes, not discriminable by nonmusicians. The present study addressed the pitch processing accuracy in musicians with expertise in playing a wide selection of instruments (e.g., piano; wind and string instruments). Of specific interest was whether also musicians with such divergent backgrounds have facilitated accuracy in automatic and/or attentive levels of auditory processing. Thirteen professional musicians and 13 nonmusicians were presented with frequent standard sounds and rare deviant sounds (0.8, 2, or 4% higher in frequency). Auditory event-related potentials evoked by these sounds were recorded while first the subjects read a self-chosen book and second they indicated behaviorally the detection of sounds with deviant frequency. Musicians detected the pitch changes faster and more accurately than nonmusicians. The N2b and P3 responses recorded during attentive listening had larger amplitude in musicians than in nonmusicians. Interestingly, the superiority in pitch discrimination accuracy in musicians over nonmusicians was observed not only with the 0.8% but also with the 2% frequency changes. Moreover, also nonmusicians detected quite reliably the smallest pitch changes of 0.8%. However, the mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a recorded during a reading condition did not differentiate musicians and nonmusicians. These results suggest that musical expertise may exert its effects merely at attentive levels of processing and not necessarily already at the preattentive levels.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2004

Music, language and meaning: brain signatures of semantic processing.

Semantics is a key feature of language, but whether or not music can activate brain mechanisms related to the processing of semantic meaning is not known. We compared processing of semantic meaning in language and music, investigating the semantic priming effect as indexed by behavioral measures and by the N400 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP) measured by electroencephalography (EEG). Human subjects were presented visually with target words after hearing either a spoken sentence or a musical excerpt. Target words that were semantically unrelated to prime sentences elicited a larger N400 than did target words that were preceded by semantically related sentences. In addition, target words that were preceded by semantically unrelated musical primes showed a similar N400 effect, as compared to target words preceded by related musical primes. The N400 priming effect did not differ between language and music with respect to time course, strength or neural generators. Our results indicate that both music and language can prime the meaning of a word, and that music can, as language, determine physiological indices of semantic processing.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2004

Music perception in cochlear implant users: an event-related potential study.

OBJECTIVE: Compare the processing of music-syntactic irregularities and physical oddballs between cochlear implant (CI) users and matched controls. METHODS: Musical chord sequences were presented, some of which contained functionally irregular chords, or a chord with an instrumental timbre that deviated from the standard timbre. RESULTS: In both controls and CI users, functionally irregular chords elicited early (around 200 ms) and late (around 500 ms) negative electric brain responses (early right anterior negativity,ERAN and N5). Amplitudes of effects depended on the degree of music-syntactic irregularity in both groups; effects elicited in CI users were distinctly smaller than in controls. Physically deviant chords elicited a timbre-mismatch negativity (MMN) and a P3 in both groups, again with smaller amplitudes in CI users. CONCLUSIONS: ERAN and N5 (as well as timbre-MMN and P3), can be elicited in CI users. Although amplitudes of effects were considerably smaller in the CI group, the presence of MMN and ERAN indicates that neural mechanisms of both physical and music-syntactic irregularity-detection were active in this group.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2004

Sequential effects of increasing propofol sedation on frontal and temporal cortices as indexed by auditory event-related potentials.

BACKGROUND: It is an open question whether cognitive processes of auditory perception that are mediated by functionally different cortices exhibit the same sensitivity to sedation. The auditory event-related potentials P1, mismatch negativity (MMN), and early right anterior negativity (ERAN) originate from different cortical areas and reflect different stages of auditory processing. The P1 originates mainly from the primary auditory cortex. The MMN is generated in or in the close vicinity of the primary auditory cortex but is also dependent on frontal sources. The ERAN mainly originates from frontal generators. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of increasing propofol sedation on different stages of auditory processing as reflected in P1, MMN, and ERAN. METHODS: The P1, the MMN, and the ERAN were recorded preoperatively in 18 patients during four levels of anesthesia adjusted with target-controlled infusion: awake state (target concentration of propofol 0.0 microg/ml), light sedation (0.5 microg/ml), deep sedation (1.5 microg/ml), and unconsciousness (2.5-3.0 microg/ml). Simultaneously, propofol anesthesia was assessed using the Bispectral Index. RESULTS: Propofol sedation resulted in a progressive decrease in amplitudes and an increase of latencies with a similar pattern for MMN and ERAN. MMN and ERAN were elicited during sedation but were abolished during unconsciousness. In contrast, the amplitude of the P1 was unchanged by sedation but markedly decreased during unconsciousness. CONCLUSION: The results indicate differential effects of propofol sedation on cognitive functions that involve mainly the auditory cortices and cognitive functions that involve the frontal cortices.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2003

Processing tonal modulations: an ERP study.

A common stylistic element of Western tonal music is the change of key within a musical sequence (known as modulation in musical terms). The aim of the present study was to investigate neural correlates of the cognitive processing of modulations with event-related brain potentials. Participants listened to sequences of chords that were infrequently modulating. Modulating chords elicited distinct effects in the event-related brain potentials: an early right anterior negativity reflecting the processing of a violation of musical regularities and a late frontal negativity taken to reflect processes of harmonic integration. Additionally, modulations elicited a tonic negative potential suggested to reflect cognitive processes characteristic for the processing of tonal modulations, namely, the restructuring of the "hierarchy of harmonic stability" (which specifies musical expectations), presumably entailing working memory operations. Participants were "nonmusicians"; results thus support the hypothesis that nonmusicians have a sophisticated (implicit) knowledge about musical regularities.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2003

Children processing music: electric brain responses reveal musical competence and gender differences.

Numerous studies investigated physiological correlates of the processing of musical information in adults. How these correlates develop during childhood is poorly understood. In the present study, we measured event-related electric brain potentials elicited in 5- and 9-year-old children while they listened to (major-minor tonal) music. Stimuli were chord sequences, infrequently containing harmonically inappropriate chords. Our results demonstrate that the degree of (in)appropriateness of the chords modified the brain responses in both groups according to music-theoretical principles. This suggests that already 5-year-old children process music according to a well-established cognitive representation of the major-minor tonal system and according to music-syntactic regularities. Moreover, we show that, in contrast to adults, an early negative brain response was left predominant in boys, whereas it was bilateral in girls, indicating a gender difference in children processing music, and revealing that children process music with a hemispheric weighting different from that of adults. Because children process, in contrast to adults, music in the same hemispheres as they process language, results indicate that children process music and language more similarly than adults. This finding might support the notion of a common origin of music and language in the human brain, and concurs with findings that demonstrate the importance of musical features of speech for the acquisition of language.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2003

Electric brain responses reveal gender differences in music processing.

The present study investigates gender differences in the functional organization of the brain for music processing. In the language domain, males appear to have greater left hemisphere control than females. Despite some overlap of neural structures and processes for the perception of music and language, gender differences of musical functions have so far not been reported. Data sets of three previous music experiments with event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were pooled and re-analyzed. Results demonstrate that an electrophysiological correlate of music-syntactic processing (ERAN, or music-syntactic MMN) is generated bilaterally in females, and with right hemispheric predominance in males. The present findings indicate that gender differences for the analysis of auditory information are not restricted to processes in the linguistic domain such as syntax, semantics, and phonology.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2003

Toward the neural basis of processing structure in music. Comparative results of different neurophysiological investigation methods.

In major-minor tonal music, chord functions are arranged according to certain regularities. The dominant-tonic progression, known as an authentic cadence, is often used as a marker of the end of a harmonic progression and has been considered a basic syntactic structure of major-minor tonal music by several music theorists and music psychologists. We review data from studies in which brain responses to an authentic cadence were compared to those elicited by music-syntactically inappropriate endings. In event-related electric brain potentials (recorded with EEG), the inappropriate endings elicit early right anterior negativity (ERAN), which is maximal around 200 ms after the presentation of an inappropriate chord. The ERAN is reminiscent of early anterior negativities elicited by syntactic incongruities during the perception of language. Magnetoencephalographic (MEG) data suggest that the ERAN is generated in the inferior frontolateral cortex, an area known to be crucially involved in the processing of (linguistic) syntax. Interestingly, the ERAN can be recorded in nonmusicians and in children, indicating that the ability to acquire (implicit) knowledge about musical regularities and to process musical information according to this knowledge is a general ability of the human brain. This ability is probably of great importance for the acquisition of language in infants and children.

Auditory Perception↗
PubMed2002

Electric brain responses to inappropriate harmonies during listening to expressive music.

OBJECTIVES: Recent studies with event-related brain potentials (ERPs) investigating music processing found (early) negativities with right-hemispheric predominance as a response to inappropriate harmonies within sequences of chords. The stimuli used in those studies were fairly artificial in order to control the experimental factors (e.g. variations in tempo and loudness were eliminated). This raises the question of whether these ERPs can also be elicited during listening to more naturalistic stimuli. METHODS: Excerpts from classical piano sonatas were taken from commercial CDs and presented to the participants while recording the continuous electroencephalogram. Expected chords and unexpected (transposed) chords were presented at the end of chord-sequences. RESULTS: Unexpected chords elicited a negativity which was maximal around 250 ms, visible over both hemispheres, and preponderant over right temporal leads. CONCLUSIONS: The found negativity is strongly reminiscent to both early right anterior negativity and right anterior-temporal negativity, suggesting that cognitive processes underlying these ERP components are not only elicited with fairly artificial experimental stimuli but also when listening to expressive music.

Acoustic Stimulation↗