Neuroarchitecture of verbal and tonal working memory in nonmusicians and musicians
Open accessAbstract
Working memory (WM) for auditory information has been thought of as a unitary system, but whether WM for verbal and tonal information relies on the same or different functional neuroarchitectures has remained unknown. This fMRI study examines verbal and tonal WM in both nonmusicians (who are trained in speech, but not in music) and highly trained musicians (who are trained in both domains). The data show that core structures of WM are involved in both tonal and verbal WM (Broca's area, premotor cortex, pre-SMA/SMA, left insular cortex, inferior parietal lobe), although with significantly different structural weightings, in both nonmusicians and musicians. Additionally, musicians activated specific subcomponents only during verbal (right insular cortex) or only during tonal WM (right globus pallidus, right caudate nucleus, and left cerebellum). These results reveal the existence of two WM systems in musicians: A phonological loop supporting rehearsal of phonological information, and a tonal loop supporting rehearsal of tonal information. Differences between groups for tonal WM, and between verbal and tonal WM within musicians, were mainly related to structures involved in controlling, programming and planning of actions, thus presumably reflecting differences in action-related sensorimotor coding of verbal and tonal information.
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In anterior cingulate, the most posterior zone is associated with motor execution rather than conflict monitoring or response selection, while the anterior zone associated with conflict monitoring is more activated by speech than nonspeech.
“In the anterior cingulate, the most posterior zone was associated with motor execution, rather than conflict monitoring or response selection (Schulze et al., 2011) but the anterior zone associated with conflict monitoring (Schulze et al., 2011) was found to be more activated by speech than nonspeech (Chang et al., 2009).”
From A review and synthesis of the first 20years of PET and fMRI studies of heard speech, spoken language and reading (2012) · cites this paper as Schulze et al., 2011
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- Authors
- Schulze, K., Zysset, S., Mueller, K., Friederici, A. D., & Koelsch, S.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (DE)
- Venue
- Human Brain Mapping
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2011-04-11
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 771-783
- ISSN
- 1065-9471 (ISSN-L)
- 1097-0193
- PMC
- PMC6870416
- OpenAlex
- W2109118393
- Cited by
- 261
- References
- 58
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 19 · 2013: 27 · 2012: 19
- FWCI
- 11.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Human Brain Mapping (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Music Perception
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Keywords
- verbal working memory, auditory working memory, musicians, non-musicians, phonological loop, Broca's area, pre-supplementary motor area, insula, globus pallidus, caudate nucleus, cerebellum, action planning, musical training
- MeSH terms
- Acoustic Stimulation, Adult, Auditory Perception, Brain, Brain Mapping, Female, Humans, Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Memory, Short-Term, Music, Young Adult
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