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Electrical Brain Responses to an Auditory Illusion and the Impact of Musical Expertise

The presentation of two sinusoidal tones, one to each ear, with a slight frequency mismatch yields an auditory illusion of a beating frequency equal to the frequency difference between the two tones; this is known as binaural beat (BB). The effect of brief BB stimulation on scalp EEG is not conclusi...

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Autores principales: Ioannou, Christos I., Pereda, Ernesto, Lindsen, Job P., Bhattacharya, Joydeep
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4466486/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26065708
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0129486
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author Ioannou, Christos I.
Pereda, Ernesto
Lindsen, Job P.
Bhattacharya, Joydeep
author_facet Ioannou, Christos I.
Pereda, Ernesto
Lindsen, Job P.
Bhattacharya, Joydeep
author_sort Ioannou, Christos I.
collection PubMed
description The presentation of two sinusoidal tones, one to each ear, with a slight frequency mismatch yields an auditory illusion of a beating frequency equal to the frequency difference between the two tones; this is known as binaural beat (BB). The effect of brief BB stimulation on scalp EEG is not conclusively demonstrated. Further, no studies have examined the impact of musical training associated with BB stimulation, yet musicians' brains are often associated with enhanced auditory processing. In this study, we analysed EEG brain responses from two groups, musicians and non-musicians, when stimulated by short presentation (1 min) of binaural beats with beat frequency varying from 1 Hz to 48 Hz. We focused our analysis on alpha and gamma band EEG signals, and they were analysed in terms of spectral power, and functional connectivity as measured by two phase synchrony based measures, phase locking value and phase lag index. Finally, these measures were used to characterize the degree of centrality, segregation and integration of the functional brain network. We found that beat frequencies belonging to alpha band produced the most significant steady-state responses across groups. Further, processing of low frequency (delta, theta, alpha) binaural beats had significant impact on cortical network patterns in the alpha band oscillations. Altogether these results provide a neurophysiological account of cortical responses to BB stimulation at varying frequencies, and demonstrate a modulation of cortico-cortical connectivity in musicians' brains, and further suggest a kind of neuronal entrainment of a linear and nonlinear relationship to the beating frequencies.
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spelling pubmed-44664862015-06-22 Electrical Brain Responses to an Auditory Illusion and the Impact of Musical Expertise Ioannou, Christos I. Pereda, Ernesto Lindsen, Job P. Bhattacharya, Joydeep PLoS One Research Article The presentation of two sinusoidal tones, one to each ear, with a slight frequency mismatch yields an auditory illusion of a beating frequency equal to the frequency difference between the two tones; this is known as binaural beat (BB). The effect of brief BB stimulation on scalp EEG is not conclusively demonstrated. Further, no studies have examined the impact of musical training associated with BB stimulation, yet musicians' brains are often associated with enhanced auditory processing. In this study, we analysed EEG brain responses from two groups, musicians and non-musicians, when stimulated by short presentation (1 min) of binaural beats with beat frequency varying from 1 Hz to 48 Hz. We focused our analysis on alpha and gamma band EEG signals, and they were analysed in terms of spectral power, and functional connectivity as measured by two phase synchrony based measures, phase locking value and phase lag index. Finally, these measures were used to characterize the degree of centrality, segregation and integration of the functional brain network. We found that beat frequencies belonging to alpha band produced the most significant steady-state responses across groups. Further, processing of low frequency (delta, theta, alpha) binaural beats had significant impact on cortical network patterns in the alpha band oscillations. Altogether these results provide a neurophysiological account of cortical responses to BB stimulation at varying frequencies, and demonstrate a modulation of cortico-cortical connectivity in musicians' brains, and further suggest a kind of neuronal entrainment of a linear and nonlinear relationship to the beating frequencies. Public Library of Science 2015-06-12 /pmc/articles/PMC4466486/ /pubmed/26065708 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0129486 Text en © 2015 Ioannou et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Ioannou, Christos I.
Pereda, Ernesto
Lindsen, Job P.
Bhattacharya, Joydeep
Electrical Brain Responses to an Auditory Illusion and the Impact of Musical Expertise
title Electrical Brain Responses to an Auditory Illusion and the Impact of Musical Expertise
title_full Electrical Brain Responses to an Auditory Illusion and the Impact of Musical Expertise
title_fullStr Electrical Brain Responses to an Auditory Illusion and the Impact of Musical Expertise
title_full_unstemmed Electrical Brain Responses to an Auditory Illusion and the Impact of Musical Expertise
title_short Electrical Brain Responses to an Auditory Illusion and the Impact of Musical Expertise
title_sort electrical brain responses to an auditory illusion and the impact of musical expertise
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4466486/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26065708
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0129486
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