Evidence for Training-Induced Plasticity in Multisensory Brain Structures: An MEG Study

Multisensory learning and resulting neural brain plasticity have recently become a topic of renewed interest in human cognitive neuroscience. Music notation reading is an ideal stimulus to study multisensory learning, as it allows studying the integration of visual, auditory and sensorimotor informa...

Verfasser: Paraskevopoulos, Evangelos
Kuchenbuch, Anja
Herholz, Sibylle C.
Pantev, Christo
FB/Einrichtung:FB 05: Medizinische Fakultät
Dokumenttypen:Artikel
Medientypen:Text
Erscheinungsdatum:2012
Publikation in MIAMI:25.02.2013
Datum der letzten Änderung:08.09.2022
Angaben zur Ausgabe:[Electronic ed.]
Quelle:PLoS ONE 7 (2012) 5, e36534
Fachgebiet (DDC):610: Medizin und Gesundheit
Lizenz:CC BY 2.5
Sprache:English
Anmerkungen:Finanziert durch den Open-Access-Publikationsfonds 2011/2012 der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) und der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster (WWU Münster).
Format:PDF-Dokument
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-37379461387
Weitere Identifikatoren:DOI: doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0036534
Permalink:https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-37379461387
Onlinezugriff:journal.pone.0036534.pdf

Multisensory learning and resulting neural brain plasticity have recently become a topic of renewed interest in human cognitive neuroscience. Music notation reading is an ideal stimulus to study multisensory learning, as it allows studying the integration of visual, auditory and sensorimotor information processing. The present study aimed at answering whether multisensory learning alters uni-sensory structures, interconnections of uni-sensory structures or specific multisensory areas. In a short-term piano training procedure musically naive subjects were trained to play tone sequences from visually presented patterns in a music notation-like system [Auditory-Visual-Somatosensory group (AVS)], while another group received audio-visual training only that involved viewing the patterns and attentively listening to the recordings of the AVS training sessions [Auditory-Visual group (AV)]. Training-related changes in cortical networks were assessed by pre- and posttraining magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings of an auditory, a visual and an integrated audio-visual mismatch negativity (MMN). The two groups (AVS and AV) were differently affected by the training. The results suggest that multisensory training alters the function of multisensory structures, and not the uni-sensory ones along with their interconnections, and thus provide an answer to an important question presented by cognitive models of multisensory training.