Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Musical experience shapes human brainstem encoding of linguistic pitch patterns

Nature Neuroscience volume 10, pages 420–422 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Music and speech are very cognitively demanding auditory phenomena generally attributed to cortical rather than subcortical circuitry. We examined brainstem encoding of linguistic pitch and found that musicians show more robust and faithful encoding compared with nonmusicians. These results not only implicate a common subcortical manifestation for two presumed cortical functions, but also a possible reciprocity of corticofugal speech and music tuning, providing neurophysiological explanations for musicians' higher language-learning ability.

This is a preview of subscription content

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: Frequency following responses from selected subjects.
Figure 2: Pitch tracking group results.
Figure 3: Association between musical training and pitch tracking.

References

  1. Rauschecker, J.P. Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 8, 516–521 (1998).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Patel, A.D. Nat. Neurosci. 6, 674–681 (2003).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Wong, P.C., Parsons, L.M., Martinez, M. & Diehl, R.L. J. Neurosci. 24, 9153–9160 (2004).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Wong, P.C.M., Perrachione, T.K. & Parrish, T.B. Hum. Brain Mapp. (in the press).

  5. Russo, N.M., Nicol, T.G., Zecker, S.G., Hayes, E.A. & Kraus, N. Behav. Brain Res. 156, 95–103 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Greenberg, S., Marsh, J.T., Brown, W.S. & Smith, J.C. Hear. Res. 25, 91–114 (1987).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Krishnan, A., Xu, Y., Gandour, J. & Cariani, P. Cogn. Brain Res. 25, 161–168 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Li, W., Piech, V. & Gilbert, C.D. Nat. Neurosci. 7, 651–657 (2004).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Slevc, L.R. & Miyake, A. Psychol. Sci. 17, 675–681 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Suga, N., Gao, E., Zhang, Y., Ma, X. & Olsen, J.F. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 97, 11807–11814 (2000).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Schon, D., Magne, C. & Besson, M. Psychophysiology 41, 341–349 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Nosofsky, R.M. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 115, 39–61 (1986).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Ahissar, M. & Hochstein, S. Trends Cogn. Sci. 8, 457–464 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Johnson, K.L., Nicol, T.G. & Kraus, N. Ear Hear. 26, 424–434 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Gordon, M. & O'Neill, W.E. J. Comp. Neurol. 426, 165–181 (2000).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors thank J. Song, B. Williams, J. Alexander, A. Bradlow, T. Nicol, and T. Perrachione for their assistance in this research. This work is supported by Northwestern University and the US National Institutes of Health grant R03HD051827 and R21DC007468 to P.W. and R01DC001510 to N.K, and National Science Foundation grant BCS-0544846 to N.K.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Erika Skoe and Nicole M Russo: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, 2240 Campus Drive, Evanston, Illinois 60208-3540, USA.,

    Patrick C M Wong, Erika Skoe, Nicole M Russo, Tasha Dees & Nina Kraus

  2. Northwestern University Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Northwestern University, 2240 Campus Drive, Evanston, 60208-3540, Illinois, USA

    Patrick C M Wong, Nicole M Russo & Nina Kraus

  3. Department of Neurobiology and Physiology, Northwestern University, 2240 Campus Drive, Evanston, 60208-3540, Illinois, USA

    Nina Kraus

  4. Department of Otolaryngology, Northwestern University, 2240 Campus Drive, Evanston, 60208-3540, Illinois, USA

    Nina Kraus

Authors
  1. Patrick C M Wong
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Erika Skoe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Nicole M Russo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Tasha Dees
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Nina Kraus
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Patrick C M Wong.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Wong, P., Skoe, E., Russo, N. et al. Musical experience shapes human brainstem encoding of linguistic pitch patterns. Nat Neurosci 10, 420–422 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1872

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1872

Further reading

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing