Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2011 May;32(5):771-83. doi: 10.1002/hbm.21060.
Working memory (WM) for auditory information has been thought of as a unitary system, but whether WM for verbal and tonal information relies on the same or different functional neuroarchitectures has remained unknown. This fMRI study examines verbal and tonal WM in both nonmusicians (who are trained in speech, but not in music) and highly trained musicians (who are trained in both domains). The data show that core structures of WM are involved in both tonal and verbal WM (Broca's area, premotor cortex, pre-SMA/SMA, left insular cortex, inferior parietal lobe), although with significantly different structural weightings, in both nonmusicians and musicians. Additionally, musicians activated specific subcomponents only during verbal (right insular cortex) or only during tonal WM (right globus pallidus, right caudate nucleus, and left cerebellum). These results reveal the existence of two WM systems in musicians: A phonological loop supporting rehearsal of phonological information, and a tonal loop supporting rehearsal of tonal information. Differences between groups for tonal WM, and between verbal and tonal WM within musicians, were mainly related to structures involved in controlling, programming and planning of actions, thus presumably reflecting differences in action-related sensorimotor coding of verbal and tonal information.
工作记忆（WM）被认为是一个统一的系统，但言语和音调信息的 WM 是否依赖于相同或不同的功能神经结构仍然未知。这项 fMRI 研究在非音乐家（受过言语训练，但未受过音乐训练）和高度训练的音乐家（受过这两个领域的训练）中检查了言语和音调 WM。数据表明，核心 WM 结构参与了音调 WM 和言语 WM（Broca 区、运动前皮质、前 SMA/SMA、左岛叶、下顶叶），尽管在非音乐家和音乐家中，结构权重存在显著差异。此外，音乐家仅在言语 WM 期间（右侧岛叶）或仅在音调 WM 期间（右侧苍白球、右侧尾状核和左侧小脑）激活特定的子组件。这些结果表明音乐家存在两种 WM 系统：一个语音环支持语音信息的复述，一个音调环支持音调信息的复述。音乐家在音调 WM 方面的组间差异，以及在言语和音调 WM 之间的音乐家内部差异，主要与涉及动作控制、编程和计划的结构有关，因此可能反映了言语和音调信息与动作相关的感觉运动编码的差异。
