Ragert Patrick, Schmidt Alexander, Altenmüller Eckart, Dinse Hubert R
Institute for Neuroinformatics, Theoretical Biology Ruhr-University, D-44780 Bochum, Germany.
Eur J Neurosci. 2004 Jan;19(2):473-8. doi: 10.1111/j.0953-816x.2003.03142.x.
Musician's brains constitute an interesting model for neuroplasticity. Imaging studies demonstrated that sensorimotor cortical representations are altered in musicians, which was assumed to arise from the development of skilled performance. However, the perceptual consequences of the cortical changes remain elusive. Here we ask whether cortical reorganization induced by professional musical skill training is paralleled by the evolution of other, unrelated perceptual abilities. We therefore studied psychophysically tactile spatial acuity as an indirect marker of cortical changes in professional pianists and non-musician control subjects using a simultaneous two-point discrimination paradigm. We show that long-lasting piano practising resulted in lower spatial discrimination thresholds in comparison to non-musicians. In musicians, individual discrimination thresholds were linearly correlated with the daily training duration, indicating a direct link between tactile acuity and the degree of piano practising. To investigate whether the superior acuity in pianists is subject to further improvement, we used a Hebbian stimulation protocol of tactile coactivation known to improve spatial tactile acuity. Three hours of coactivation further reduced their discrimination thresholds. The coactivation-induced gain in pianists was significantly larger in comparison to control subjects and correlated with the years of heavy daily practising (>3 h/day), but not with the total years including casual playing. Our results suggest that despite already high-level performance in pianists, Hebbian learning was more effective in musicians than in controls. This implies stronger capacities for plastic reorganization and points to enhanced learning abilities implicating a form of meta-plasticity in professional pianists.
音乐家的大脑构成了一个关于神经可塑性的有趣模型。成像研究表明，音乐家的感觉运动皮层表征发生了改变，这被认为是由熟练演奏的发展引起的。然而，皮层变化的感知后果仍然难以捉摸。在这里，我们要问的是，专业音乐技能训练所诱导的皮层重组是否与其他不相关感知能力的发展并行。因此，我们使用同时两点辨别范式，将专业钢琴家与非音乐家对照受试者的心理物理触觉空间敏锐度作为皮层变化的间接指标进行了研究。我们发现，与非音乐家相比，长期的钢琴练习导致空间辨别阈值更低。在音乐家中，个体辨别阈值与每日训练时长呈线性相关，表明触觉敏锐度与钢琴练习程度之间存在直接联系。为了研究钢琴家的卓越敏锐度是否还能进一步提高，我们使用了一种已知能提高空间触觉敏锐度的触觉共激活赫布刺激方案。三小时的共激活进一步降低了他们的辨别阈值。与对照受试者相比，钢琴家中共激活诱导的增益显著更大，且与每日高强度练习（>3小时/天）的年限相关，但与包括偶尔弹奏在内的总年限无关。我们的结果表明，尽管钢琴家已经具备高水平的演奏能力，但赫布学习在音乐家中比在对照受试者中更有效。这意味着更强的可塑性重组能力，并表明专业钢琴家具有增强的学习能力，这涉及一种元可塑性形式。
