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Increased gray matter volume of left pars opercularis in male orchestral musicians correlate positively with years of musical performance
Author(s) -
AbdulKareem Ihssan A.,
Stancak Andrej,
Parkes Laura M.,
Sluming Vanessa
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of magnetic resonance imaging
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.563
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1522-2586
pISSN - 1053-1807
DOI - 10.1002/jmri.22391
Subject(s) - broca's area , lateralization of brain function , voxel based morphometry , psychology , white matter , audiology , voxel , anatomy , cognitive psychology , medicine , magnetic resonance imaging , radiology
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. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2011;33:24–32. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.