UDC

612.85.016.6-057.875+612.822.3(045)

Authors

Kunavin Mikhail Alekseevich
Institute of Natural Sciences and Technologies, Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov (Arkhangelsk, Russia)
Sokolova Lyudmila Vladimirovna
Institute of Natural Sciences and Technologies, Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov (Arkhangelsk, Russia)

Abstract

Contemporary researchers studying music perception often use complete pieces of music of different styles as a stimulus. Such an approach does not contribute to understanding how different components of musical audio-stimuli interact with each other and gives rise to various conflicting theories of music perception. A piece of music should be regarded as complex auditory stimuli including such characteristics as rhythm, key and melody. This study aims to identify peculiarities of functional brain organization when perceiving the melodic component of audio-stimuli. Our study involved students of Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov without music education (70 subjects, mean age 20.4±1.2 years). Electroencephalogram was recorded at rest and when listening to musical audio-stimuli, computer-generated using TuxGuitar software. We studied spatio-temporal organization of brain bioelectrical activity of the subjects perceiving the tempo, rhythm and melody of audio-stimuli. Using the repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance (RM MANOVA), we found patterns of cortical interaction that are uniquely associated with the melody analysis. Inclusion of melodic patterns in the composition of audio-stimuli proved to have a significant impact on the structure of spatio-temporal relationships of brain biopotentials in theta- and beta-rhythm ranges. We found increased coherence levels within the fronto-thalamic modulating system in subjects listening to the melodies. In the betarhythm range we saw a formation of cortical neural network of ineterhemispheric interaction with the focus of activity in posterior associative areas of the right hemisphere.

Keywords

brain bioelectrical activity, coherence, music perception, audio-stimuli, melodic component

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