ORCID Profile
0000-0002-4501-7338
Current Organisations
Helsinki University Hospital
,
University of Queensland
,
University of Helsinki
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Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2022
DOI: 10.1016/J.JPAIN.2022.01.003
Abstract: Chronic pain with its comorbidities, such as depression, insomnia, and social deprivation, is a major cause of disability and health-economic burden. Insufficient response to pain medication and potentially serious adverse effects have led the majority of chronic pain patients to seek relief from non-pharmacological remedies. Along with this trend, pain research has paid increasing interest in critical evaluation of various complementary treatments. Music-based treatments have emerged as an efficacious and safe means to enhance the management of acute and chronic pain. We review the current position of music-based interventions in the treatment of chronic pain and present explanations for the analgesic effects of music through modulation of the primary nociception and discuss the contribution of the mesolimbic dopaminergic system to the affective component of pain perception. We propose ways to translate the novel theoretical understanding into clinical practice in different health care settings, primary health care in particular, and discuss the preconditions of successful implementation. We argue that music interventions provide low-cost, easily applicable complementary pain treatments not requiring heavy utilization of health care resources. Finally, we provide research and quality improvement frameworks and make suggestions to cover the gaps of existing evidence. PERSPECTIVE: This article addresses the current evidence for analgesic effects of music interventions, discusses its neurobiological basis and evaluates potential use of music in treating chronic pain patients in different health care settings. We also propose directions for future research to cover shortages in the currently published data.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 2023
DOI: 10.1177/17562864231186091
Abstract: IgG4-related disease (IgG4-RD) is an emerging immune-mediated chronic fibrotic disease characterized by tumour-like mass formation. Reports of brain parenchymal involvement in IgG4-RD are rare and complete treatment-related remission of lesions has never been reported. Here, we present a woman in her mid-50s who developed headache and seizures. Brain magnetic resonance imaging revealed frontal bilateral pachymeningitis and a left frontal lobe parenchymal lesion, and pathologic findings were consistent with an IgG4-RD central nervous system manifestation. She had a history of tumour-like growth around the right optic nerve, orbital and maxillary cavities treated successfully with corticosteroids 28 years ago, and was receiving infliximab as a maintenance therapy for uveitis for the last 14 years. After initial high-dose corticosteroid treatment, the patient was treated with rituximab, and after 3 months, the patient presented with complete remission of IgG4-RD lesions and associated symptoms. This case illustrates the chronic, decades-spanning nature of IgG4-RD, and a complete response to rituximab even with intracerebral mass lesions that had emerged despite the use of infliximab, a therapy previously reported successful in IgG4-RD.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2018
DOI: 10.1016/J.CORTEX.2018.08.034
Abstract: During the last decades, there have been major advances in mapping the brain regions that underlie our ability to perceive, experience, and produce music and how musical training can shape the structure and function of the brain. This progress has fueled and renewed clinical interest towards uncovering the neural basis for the impaired or preserved processing of music in different neurological disorders and how music-based interventions can be used in their rehabilitation and care. This article reviews our contribution to and the state-of-the-art of this field. We will provide a short overview outlining the key brain networks that participate in the processing of music and singing in the healthy brain and then present recent findings on the following key music-related research topics in neurological disorders: (i) the neural architecture underlying deficient processing of music (amusia), (ii) the preservation of singing in aphasia and music-evoked emotions and memories in Alzheimer's disease, (iii) the mnemonic impact of songs as a verbal learning tool, and (iv) the cognitive, emotional, and neural efficacy of music-based interventions and activities in the rehabilitation and care of major ageing-related neurological illnesses (stroke, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease).
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2021
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 16-11-2021
DOI: 10.1111/EJN.15524
Abstract: Recent evidence suggests that post‐stroke vocal music listening can aid language recovery, but the network‐level functional neuroplasticity mechanisms of this effect are unknown. Here, we sought to determine if improved language recovery observed after post‐stroke listening to vocal music is driven by changes in longitudinal resting‐state functional connectivity within the language network. Using data from a single‐blind randomized controlled trial on stroke patients ( N = 38), we compared the effects of daily listening to self‐selected vocal music, instrumental music and audio books on changes of the resting‐state functional connectivity within the language network and their correlation to improved language skills and verbal memory during the first 3 months post‐stroke. From acute to 3‐month stage, the vocal music and instrumental music groups increased functional connectivity between a cluster comprising the left inferior parietal areas and the language network more than the audio book group. However, the functional connectivity increase correlated with improved verbal memory only in the vocal music group cluster. This study shows that listening to vocal music post‐stroke promotes recovery of verbal memory by inducing changes in longitudinal functional connectivity in the language network. Our results conform to the variable neurodisplacement theory underpinning aphasia recovery.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 15-03-2018
DOI: 10.1111/NYAS.13624
Abstract: Coupling novel verbal material with a musical melody can potentially aid in its learning and recall in healthy subjects, but this has never been systematically studied in stroke patients with cognitive deficits. In a counterbalanced design, we presented novel verbal material (short narrative stories) in both spoken and sung formats to stroke patients at the acute poststroke stage and 6 months poststroke. The task comprised three learning trials and a delayed recall trial. Memory performance on the spoken and sung tasks did not differ at the acute stage, whereas sung stories were learned and recalled significantly better compared with spoken stories at the 6 months poststroke stage. Interestingly, this pattern of results was evident especially in patients with mild aphasia, in whom the learning of sung versus spoken stories improved more from the acute to the 6-month stages compared with nonaphasic patients. Overall, these findings suggest that singing could be used as a mnemonic aid in the learning of novel verbal material in later stages of recovery after stroke.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 27-10-2021
DOI: 10.1111/ENE.15148
Abstract: This study was undertaken to determine and compare lesion patterns and structural dysconnectivity underlying poststroke aprosodia and amusia, using a data‐driven multimodal neuroimaging approach. Thirty‐nine patients with right or left hemisphere stroke were enrolled in a cohort study and tested for linguistic and affective prosody perception and musical pitch and rhythm perception at subacute and 3‐month poststroke stages. Participants listened to words spoken with different prosodic stress that changed their meaning, and to words spoken with six different emotions, and chose which meaning or emotion was expressed. In the music tasks, participants judged pairs of short melodies as the same or different in terms of pitch or rhythm. Structural magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired at both stages, and machine learning‐based lesion–symptom mapping and deterministic tractography were used to identify lesion patterns and damaged white matter pathways giving rise to aprosodia and amusia. Both aprosodia and amusia were behaviorally strongly correlated and associated with similar lesion patterns in right frontoinsular and striatal areas. In multiple regression models, reduced fractional anisotropy and lower tract volume of the right inferior fronto‐occipital fasciculus were the strongest predictors for both disorders, over time. These results highlight a common origin of aprosodia and amusia, both arising from damage and disconnection of the right ventral auditory stream integrating rhythmic–melodic acoustic information in prosody and music. Comorbidity of these disabilities may worsen the prognosis and affect rehabilitation success.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 27-12-2022
DOI: 10.1093/BRAINCOMMS/FCAC337
Abstract: The ability to produce words through singing can be preserved in severe aphasia, but the benefits of group-based singing rehabilitation in aphasia are largely unknown. Our aim was to determine the efficacy of a multicomponent singing intervention on communication and speech production, emotional-social functioning and caregiver well-being in aphasia. Fifty-four patients with acquired brain injury and chronic aphasia and their family caregivers (n = 43) were recruited. Using a crossover randomized controlled trial design, participants were randomized to two groups who received a 4-month singing intervention either during the first or second half of the study in addition to standard care. The intervention comprised weekly group-based training (including choir singing and group-level melodic intonation therapy) and tablet-assisted singing training at home. At baseline, 5- and 9-month stages, patients were assessed with tests and questionnaires on communication and speech production, mood, social functioning, and quality of life and family caregivers with questionnaires on caregiver burden. All participants who participated in the baseline measurement (n = 50) were included in linear mixed model analyses. Compared with standard care, the singing intervention improved everyday communication and responsive speech production from baseline to 5-month stage, and these changes were sustained also longitudinally (baseline to 9-month stage). Additionally, the intervention enhanced patients’ social participation and reduced caregiver burden. This study provides novel evidence that group-based multicomponent singing training can enhance communication and spoken language production in chronic aphasia as well as improve psychosocial wellbeing in patients and caregivers. www.clinicaltrials.gov, Unique identifier: NCT03501797.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 09-2020
Abstract: This scientific commentary refers to ‘Impairments of auditory scene analysis in posterior cortical atrophy’, by Hardy et al. (doi:10.1093/brain/awaa221).
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 12-2022
DOI: 10.1101/2022.11.30.518501
Abstract: Significant advances in non-linear dynamics and computational modeling have opened up the possibility of studying how whole-brain dynamics may be impacted by brain injury. Importantly, by looking at the local level of synchronization, it is possible to obtain a comprehensive characterization of the spatiotemporal patterns affected at different spatial scales. In the current study, we applied the turbulent dynamics framework to investigate the temporal evolution in whole-brain dynamics using an open access resting state fMRI dataset from a cohort of moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients and healthy controls (HC). We first examined how several measures related to turbulent dynamics differ between HCs and TBI patients at 3-, 6- and 12-months post-injury. We found a significant reduction in these empirical measures after TBI, with the largest change at 6-months post-injury. Next, we built a Hopf whole-brain model with coupled oscillators and conducted in silico perturbations to investigate the mechanistic principles underlying the reduced turbulent dynamics found in the empirical data. This revealed a shift to lower coupling parameters in the TBI dataset and, critically, decreased susceptibility and information encoding capability. These findings confirm the potential of the turbulent framework to characterize whole-brain dynamics after TBI and suggest a mechanistic link between structural disconnection and impaired information processing. Whole-brain turbulent dynamics capture longitudinal changes after TBI during one-year recovery period TBI patients show partial recovery of resting state network dynamics at large spatial scales Whole-brain computational modeling provides a mechanistic link between structural disconnection and recovery
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 14-04-2022
DOI: 10.3390/JCM11082184
Abstract: Background: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a common and devastating neurological condition, associated often with poor functional outcome and deficits in executive function. Due to the neuropathology of TBI, neuroimaging plays a crucial role in its assessment, and while diffusion MRI has been proposed as a sensitive biomarker, longitudinal studies evaluating treatment-related diffusion MRI changes are scarce. Recent evidence suggests that neurological music therapy can improve executive functions in patients with TBI and that these effects are underpinned by neuroplasticity changes in the brain. However, studies evaluating music therapy induced structural connectome changes in patients with TBI are lacking. Design: Single-blind crossover (AB/BA) randomized controlled trial (NCT01956136). Objective: Here, we report secondary outcomes of the trial and set out to assess the effect of neurological music therapy on structural white matter connectome changes and their association with improved execute function in patients with TBI. Methods: Using an AB/BA design, 25 patients with moderate or severe TBI were randomized to receive a 3-month neurological music therapy intervention either during the first (AB, n = 16) or second (BA, n = 9) half of a 6-month follow-up period. Neuropsychological testing and diffusion MRI scans were performed at baseline and at the 3-month and 6-month stage. Findings: Compared to the control group, the music therapy group increased quantitative anisotropy (QA) in the right dorsal pathways (arcuate fasciculus, superior longitudinal fasciculus) and in the corpus callosum and the right frontal aslant tract, thalamic radiation and corticostriatal tracts. The mean increased QA in this network of results correlated with improved executive function. Conclusions: This study shows that music therapy can induce structural white matter neuroplasticity in the post-TBI brain that underpins improved executive function.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 04-01-2022
DOI: 10.1093/BRAINCOMMS/FCAC001
Abstract: A classical observation in neurology is that aphasic stroke patients with impairments in speech production can nonetheless sing the same utterances. This preserved ability suggests a distinctive neural architecture for singing that could contribute to speech recovery. However, to date, these structural correlates remain unknown. Here, we combined a multivariate lesion–symptom mapping and voxel-based morphometry approach to analyse the relationship between lesion patterns and grey matter volume and production rate in speech and singing tasks. Lesion patterns for spontaneous speech and cued repetition extended into frontal, temporal and parietal areas typically reported within the speech production network. Impairment in spontaneous singing was associated with damage to the left anterior–posterior superior and middle temporal gyri. Preservation of grey matter volume in the same regions where damage led to poor speech and singing production supported better performance in these tasks. When iding the patients into fluent and dysfluent singers based on the singing performance from demographically matched controls, we found that the preservation of the left middle temporal gyrus was related to better spontaneous singing. These findings provide insights into the structural correlates of singing in chronic aphasia and may serve as biomarkers to predict treatment response in clinical trials using singing-based interventions for speech rehabilitation.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2019
DOI: 10.1016/J.NEUBIOREV.2019.08.023
Abstract: The ability to perceive and produce music is a quintessential element of human life, present in all known cultures. Modern functional neuroimaging has revealed that music listening activates a large-scale bilateral network of cortical and subcortical regions in the healthy brain. Even the most accurate structural studies do not reveal which brain areas are critical and causally linked to music processing. Such questions may be answered by analysing the effects of focal brain lesions in patients´ ability to perceive music. In this sense, acquired amusia after stroke provides a unique opportunity to investigate the neural architectures crucial for normal music processing. Based on the first large-scale longitudinal studies on stroke-induced amusia using modern multi-modal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques, such as advanced lesion-symptom mapping, grey and white matter morphometry, tractography and functional connectivity, we discuss neural structures critical for music processing, consider music processing in light of the dual-stream model in the right hemisphere, and propose a neural model for acquired amusia.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 28-02-2023
DOI: 10.1002/HBM.26252
Abstract: Poststroke aphasia typically results from brain damage to the left‐lateralized language network. The contribution of the right‐lateralized homologues in aphasia recovery remains equivocal. In this longitudinal observational study, we specifically investigated the role of right hemisphere structural connectome in aphasia recovery. Twenty‐two patients with aphasia after a left hemispheric stroke underwent comprehensive language assessment at the early subacute and chronic stages. A novel structural connectometry approach, using multi‐shell diffusion‐weighted MRI data collected at the early subacute stage, was used to evaluate the relationship between right hemisphere white matter connectome and language production and comprehension abilities at early subacute stage. Moreover, we evaluated the relationship between early subacute right hemisphere white matter connectome and longitudinal change in language production and comprehension abilities. All results were corrected for multiple comparisons. Connectometry analyses revealed negative associations between early subacute stage right hemisphere structural connectivity and language production, both cross‐sectionally and longitudinally ( p FDR .0125). In turn, only positive associations between right hemisphere structural connectivity and language comprehension were observed, both cross‐sectionally and longitudinally ( p FDR .0125). Interhemispheric connectivity was highly associated with comprehension scores. Our results shed light on the discordant interpretations of previous findings, by providing evidence that while some right hemisphere white matter pathways may make a maladaptive contribution to the recovery of language, other pathways support the recovery of language, especially comprehension abilities.
Publisher: Society for Neuroscience
Date: 24-08-2016
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 29-03-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S11682-022-00661-6
Abstract: Post-stroke neuroplasticity and cognitive recovery can be enhanced by multimodal stimulation via environmental enrichment. In this vein, recent studies have shown that enriched sound environment (i.e., listening to music) during the subacute post-stroke stage improves cognitive outcomes compared to standard care. The beneficial effects of post-stroke music listening are further pronounced when listening to music containing singing, which enhances language recovery coupled with structural and functional connectivity changes within the language network. However, outside the language network, virtually nothing is known about the effects of enriched sound environment on the structural connectome of the recovering post-stroke brain. Here, we report secondary outcomes from a single-blind randomized controlled trial (NCT01749709) in patients with ischaemic or haemorrhagic stroke (N = 38) who were randomly assigned to listen to vocal music, instrumental music, or audiobooks during the first 3 post-stroke months. Utilizing the longitudinal diffusion-weighted MRI data of the trial, the present study aimed to determine whether the music listening interventions induce changes on structural white matter connectome compared to the control audiobook intervention. Both vocal and instrumental music groups increased quantitative anisotropy longitudinally in multiple left dorsal and ventral tracts as well as in the corpus callosum, and also in the right hemisphere compared to the audiobook group. Audiobook group did not show increased structural connectivity changes compared to both vocal and instrumental music groups. This study shows that listening to music, either vocal or instrumental promotes wide-spread structural connectivity changes in the post-stroke brain, providing a fertile ground for functional restoration.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2019
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 25-07-2017
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 29-03-2020
DOI: 10.1101/2020.03.27.011577
Abstract: Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a highly prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder, which often has a devastating influence on the in idual’s academic achievement and career. Research on the neural origins of DD has continued for half a century, yielding, however, inconsistent results. The current study was set out to determine abnormalities of grey and white matter volumes in adults with DD and to shed light on neural architectures associated with reading and related skills. To this end, we conducted a whole-brain voxel based morphometry following current recommendations on analysis approaches, coupled with rigorous neuropsychological testing, to characterize the associations between neuroanatomy and skills vital for reading in DD. We found decreased volumes of grey matter in DD, comprising a left-hemispheric network including superior temporal and inferior frontal gyri, insula, the limbic system, and basal ganglia, and white matter, including the right middle temporal gyrus and hippoc us, as well as the right precuneus. These results are both consistent with the most robust previous findings on cortical abnormalities in DD and yield novel insight to the role of subcortical structures in DD, scarcely studied so far. Crucially, areas with decreased grey matter in DD overlapped with brain areas associated with technical reading skills. This supports the conclusion that the grey matter regions that we identified to have a low volume in DD are associated with the core areas vital for reading.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 06-10-2020
DOI: 10.1002/ACN3.51217
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: 2022
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-09-2017
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-017-11841-6
Abstract: Brain damage causing acquired amusia disrupts the functional music processing system, creating a unique opportunity to investigate the critical neural architectures of musical processing in the brain. In this longitudinal fMRI study of stroke patients (N = 41) with a 6-month follow-up, we used natural vocal music (sung with lyrics) and instrumental music stimuli to uncover brain activation and functional network connectivity changes associated with acquired amusia and its recovery. In the acute stage, amusic patients exhibited decreased activation in right superior temporal areas compared to non-amusic patients during instrumental music listening. During the follow-up, the activation deficits expanded to comprise a wide-spread bilateral frontal, temporal, and parietal network. The amusics showed less activation deficits to vocal music, suggesting preserved processing of singing in the amusic brain. Compared to non-recovered amusics, recovered amusics showed increased activation to instrumental music in bilateral frontoparietal areas at 3 months and in right middle and inferior frontal areas at 6 months. Amusia recovery was also associated with increased functional connectivity in right and left frontoparietal attention networks to instrumental music. Overall, our findings reveal the dynamic nature of deficient activation and connectivity patterns in acquired amusia and highlight the role of dorsal networks in amusia recovery.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 26-07-2023
DOI: 10.1038/S42003-023-05152-Y
Abstract: Theories expounding the neural relationship between speech and singing range from sharing neural circuitry, to relying on opposite hemispheres. Yet, hodological studies exploring their shared and distinct neural networks remain scarce. In this study, we combine a white matter connectometry approach together with comprehensive and naturalistic appraisal of verbal expression during spoken language production and singing in a s le of in iduals with post-stroke aphasia. Our results reveal that both spoken language production and singing are mainly supported by the left hemisphere language network and projection pathways. However, while spoken language production mostly engaged dorsal and ventral streams of speech processing, singing was associated primarily with the left ventral stream. These findings provide evidence that speech and singing share core neuronal circuitry within the left hemisphere, while distinct ventral stream contributions explain frequently observed dissociations in aphasia. Moreover, the results suggest prerequisite biomarkers for successful singing-based therapeutic interventions.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 29-11-2021
Abstract: Patients with post-stroke impairments present often significant variation in response to therapeutic interventions. Recent studies have shown that daily music listening can aid post-stroke recovery of language and memory, but reliable predictors of treatment response are unknown. Utilizing data from the music intervention arms of a single-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT) on stroke patients (N = 31), we built regression models to predict the treatment response of a two-month music listening intervention on language skills and verbal memory with baseline demographic, clinical and musical data as well as fMRI data from a music listening task. Clinically, greater improvement in verbal memory and language skills after the music listening intervention were predicted by the severity of the initial deficit and educational level. Neurally, greater baseline fMRI activation during vocal music listening in the left parietal cortical and medial frontal areas predicted greater treatment-induced improvement in language skills and greater baseline engagement of the auditory network during instrumental music listening predicted improvement in both verbal memory and language skills. Our results suggest that clinical, demographic, and neuroimaging data predicts music listening treatment response. This data could be used clinically to target music-based treatments.
Publisher: Society for Neuroscience
Date: 17-06-2021
DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0158-21.2021
Abstract: Listening to vocal music has been recently shown to improve language recovery in stroke survivors. The neuroplasticity mechanisms supporting this effect are, however, still unknown. Using data from a three-arm, single-blind, randomized controlled trial including acute stroke patients ( N = 38) and a 3 month follow-up, we set out to compare the neuroplasticity effects of daily listening to self-selected vocal music, instrumental music, and audiobooks on both brain activity and structural connectivity of the language network. Using deterministic tractography, we show that the 3 month intervention induced an enhancement of the microstructural properties of the left frontal aslant tract (FAT) for the vocal music group compared with the audiobook group. Importantly, this increase in the strength of the structural connectivity of the left FAT correlated with improved language skills. Analyses of stimulus-specific activation changes showed that the vocal music group exhibited increased activations in the frontal termination points of the left FAT during vocal music listening compared with the audiobook group from acute to 3 month poststroke stage. The increased activity correlated with the structural neuroplasticity changes in the left FAT. These results suggest that the beneficial effects of vocal music listening on poststroke language recovery are underpinned by structural neuroplasticity changes within the language network and extend our understanding of music-based interventions in stroke rehabilitation.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-05-2021
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-021-89317-X
Abstract: Developmental dyslexia (DD) is the most prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder with a substantial negative influence on the in idual’s academic achievement and career. Research on its neuroanatomical origins has continued for half a century, yielding, however, inconsistent results, lowered total brain volume being the most consistent finding. We set out to evaluate the grey matter (GM) volume and cortical abnormalities in adult dyslexic in iduals, employing a combination of whole-brain voxel- and surface-based morphometry following current recommendations on analysis approaches, coupled with rigorous neuropsychological testing. Whilst controlling for age, sex, total intracranial volume, and performance IQ, we found both decreased GM volume and cortical thickness in the left insula in participants with DD. Moreover, they had decreased GM volume in left superior temporal gyrus, putamen, globus pallidus, and parahippoc al gyrus. Higher GM volumes and cortical thickness in these areas correlated with better reading and phonological skills, deficits of which are pivotal to DD. Crucially, total brain volume did not influence our results, since it did not differ between the groups. Our findings demonstrating abnormalities in brain areas in in iduals with DD, which previously were associated with phonological processing, are compatible with the leading hypotheses on the neurocognitive origins of DD.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2018
DOI: 10.1016/J.NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA.2018.04.038
Abstract: Bilingualism is a sustained experience associated with structural changes in cortical grey matter (GM) morphology. Apart from a few studies, a dominant method used to assess bilingualism-induced GM changes has been the voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis. While VBM is sensitive to GM volume/density differences in general, it cannot be used to identify whether the observed difference is due to relative changes in, e.g., cortical thickness, area or folding, as it uses a single combined measure of them all. Here, we used surface-based analysis (SBA) approach to investigate whether early acquisition of a second language (L2) affects the cortical GM morphology relative to late L2 acquisition. More specifically, our aim was to test a hypothesis that early acquisition of two languages induces GM changes that are predominantly surface area-driven, while late acquisition is supposedly characterised with primarily thickness-driven changes. To this end, several surface-based measures were concurrently compared between the groups. In line with the hypothesis, the results revealed that early bilingual experience is associated with significantly extended cortical surface area over the left pars opercularis and the right superior temporal gyrus. Contrary to our expectations, however, we found no evidence supporting the postulated association between late L2 acquisition and increased cortical thickness. Nevertheless, our study highlights the importance of including cortical surface measures when investigating bilingualism-related GM modulations.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2017
DOI: 10.1016/J.CORTEX.2017.09.028
Abstract: Acquired amusia provides a unique opportunity to investigate the fundamental neural architectures of musical processing due to the transition from a functioning to defective music processing system. Yet, the white matter (WM) deficits in amusia remain systematically unexplored. To evaluate which WM structures form the neural basis for acquired amusia and its recovery, we studied 42 stroke patients longitudinally at acute, 3-month, and 6-month post-stroke stages using DTI [tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) and deterministic tractography (DT)] and the Scale and Rhythm subtests of the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA). Non-recovered amusia was associated with structural damage and subsequent degeneration in multiple WM tracts including the right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), arcuate fasciculus (AF), inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), uncinate fasciculus (UF), and frontal aslant tract (FAT), as well as in the corpus callosum (CC) and its posterior part (tapetum). In a linear regression analysis, the volume of the right IFOF was the main predictor of MBEA performance across time. Overall, our results provide a comprehensive picture of the large-scale deficits in intra- and interhemispheric structural connectivity underlying amusia, and conversely highlight which pathways are crucial for normal music perception.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2017
No related grants have been discovered for Aleksi Sihvonen.