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Morphology of Heschl's gyrus reflects enhanced activation in the auditory cortex of musicians

Nature Neuroscience volume 5, pages 688–694 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we compared the processing of sinusoidal tones in the auditory cortex of 12 non-musicians, 12 professional musicians and 13 amateur musicians. We found neurophysiological and anatomical differences between groups. In professional musicians as compared to non-musicians, the activity evoked in primary auditory cortex 19–30 ms after stimulus onset was 102% larger, and the gray matter volume of the anteromedial portion of Heschl's gyrus was 130% larger. Both quantities were highly correlated with musical aptitude, as measured by psychometric evaluation. These results indicate that both the morphology and neurophysiology of Heschl's gyrus have an essential impact on musical aptitude.

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Figure 1: The auditory stimulus, evoked magnetic fields and cortical anatomy.
Figure 2: Auditory evoked N19m-P30m signals and 3D gray matter surface reconstructions of HG for all subjects aligned in the same order.
Figure 3: Frequency dependence of the primary N19m-P30m and the late N100m dipole moments.
Figure 4: Correlations between early neurophysiological source activity, amHG gray matter volume and musical aptitude.

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. Berg for helpful comments, K. Sartor and C. Stippich for providing the 3D MRI scans and R. Goebel for his support with the BrainVoyager program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Heidelberg, Philosophenweg 12, D-69120, Heidelberg, Germany

    Peter Schneider, H. Günter Dosch & Hans J. Specht

  2. Department of Neurology, University Hospital Heidelberg, INF 400, D-69120, Heidelberg, Germany

    Peter Schneider, Michael Scherg, Alexander Gutschalk & André Rupp

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  1. Peter Schneider
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Correspondence to Peter Schneider.

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Schneider, P., Scherg, M., Dosch, H. et al. Morphology of Heschl's gyrus reflects enhanced activation in the auditory cortex of musicians. Nat Neurosci 5, 688–694 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn871

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