Week 7: The Brain that Makes Music and is Changes by it - Alvaro Pascual-Leone

Brain Plasticity

· Experience-dependent modification in neural structure (Sensorimotor cortex changes with skill acquisition)

· Functional and structural changes

· Converting declarative into procedural knowledge, sensory to motor system (motor and sensory cortex involved in motor skill learning)

· Neuroimages document research e.g TMS

Experiment had two groups of participants who were not musically trained, practicing a simple finger exercises. First five days had two-hour practice sessions with a test following. Thereafter, group 1 continued daily practice while group 2 did not. Cortical output maps were used to document progress.

Interesting elements:

- rest period of 20-30 minutes required between practice and test to show improvement

- obvious reorganization required for perfection of exercise i.e. established new connections (sprouting), and unmasking of previously existing connections

Mental practice

Imagined rehearsal of a motor act with the intent of learning without movement.

Cognitive representation of motor task created in advance of physical practice allowing reorganization of motor output to finger flexor and extensor muscles

Prefrontal and supplementary motor areas, basal ganglia, and cerebellum are part of the network involved in the mental simulations of motor acts.

Risks

This flexibility can result in unwanted change, injury, unwanted cortical arrangement, overuse syndrome, focal dystonia (neurological involuntary movements due to disturbances in motor program i.e abnormal motor function commonly associated with pain)

Disorganizaion of sensory representations by inhibiting functional segregation of e.g. individual digits.