Increased gray matter volume of left pars opercularis in male orchestral musicians correlate positively with years of musical performance.

Autor: Abdul-Kareem IA; School of Health Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK. Ihssan.abdulkareem@liv.ac.uk, Stancak A, Parkes LM, Sluming V
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Journal of magnetic resonance imaging : JMRI [J Magn Reson Imaging] 2011 Jan; Vol. 33 (1), pp. 24-32.
DOI: 10.1002/jmri.22391
Abstrakt: Purpose: To compare manual volumetry of gray matter (GM) / white matter (WM) of Broca's area subparts: pars opercularis (POP) and pars triangularis (PTR) in both hemispheres between musicians and nonmusician, as it has been shown that these regions are crucial for musical abilities. A previous voxel-based morphometric (VBM) study conducted in our laboratory reported increased GM density in Broca's area of left hemisphere in male orchestral musicians. Functional segregation of POP/PTR justified separate volumetric analysis of these parts.
Materials and Methods: We used the same cohort for the VBM study. Manual morphometry (stereology) was used to compare volumes between 26/26 right-handed orchestral musicians/nonmusicians.
Results: As expected, musicians showed significantly increased GM volume in the Broca's area, specifically in the left POP. No significant results were detected in right POP, left/right PTR GM volumes, and WM volumes for all regions. Results were positively correlated with years of musical performance (r = 0.7, P = 0.0001).
Conclusion: This result corroborates the VBM study and is in line with the hypothesis of critical involvement of POP in hearing-action integration being an integral component of frontoparietotemporal mirror neuron network. We hypothesize that increased size of musicians' left POP represent use-dependent structural adaptation in response to intensive audiomotor skill acquisition.
(Copyright © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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