Thaut Michael H, Fischer Corinne E, Leggieri Melissa, Vuong Veronica, Churchill Nathan W, Fornazzari Luis R, Schweizer Tom A
Faculty of Music, Music and Health Science Research Collaboratory, University of Toronto.
Psychiatry, St. Michael's Hospital Memory Disorders Clinic, University of Toronto.
Alzheimer Dis Assoc Disord. 2020 Jul-Sep;34(3):267-271. doi: 10.1097/WAD.0000000000000382.
The objective of this study was to determine whether exposure to long-known music would evoke more extensive activation of brain regions minimally affected by Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology and outside traditional memory networks using a functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm involving listening to long-known and recently-learned music in older adults with cognitive impairment to provide insight into mechanisms of long-term musical memory preservation in cognitively impaired older persons.
Seventeen subjects with a diagnosis of mild AD or mild cognitive impairment were recruited for this study. Subjects were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging while they performed a music listening task, which included short clips of personally selected music from the patient's past and newly-composed music heard for the first time 60 minutes before scanning. From this task, we obtained group-level maps comparing brain areas associated with long-known and recently-heard music in all subjects.
Exposure to long-known music preferentially activated brain regions including the medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus, anterior insula, basal ganglia, hippocampus, amygdala, and cerebellum relative to recently-heard music. These areas are involved in autobiographical memory and associated emotional responses. In addition, they are minimally affected by early stage AD pathology, thus providing a neural basis for long-known musical memory survival.
Long-known music activates a bilateral network of prefrontal, emotional, motor, auditory, and subcortical regions (cerebellum, putamen, limbic structures). This extensive activation, relative to recently-heard music, may offer structural and functional clues as to why long-term musical memory appears to be relatively preserved among cognitively impaired older persons.
本研究的目的是使用功能磁共振成像范式，确定接触长期熟悉的音乐是否会引起大脑区域更广泛的激活，这些区域受阿尔茨海默病（AD）病理影响最小且位于传统记忆网络之外。该范式涉及让患有认知障碍的老年人聆听长期熟悉的音乐和最近学习的音乐，以深入了解认知受损老年人长期音乐记忆保存的机制。
本研究招募了17名被诊断为轻度AD或轻度认知障碍的受试者。受试者在执行音乐聆听任务时接受功能磁共振成像扫描，该任务包括从患者过去个人选择的音乐短片以及扫描前60分钟首次听到的新创作音乐。通过这个任务，我们获得了比较所有受试者中与长期熟悉的音乐和最近听到的音乐相关的脑区的组水平图谱。
与最近听到的音乐相比，接触长期熟悉的音乐优先激活了包括内侧前额叶皮质、楔前叶、前岛叶皮质、基底神经节、海马体、杏仁核和小脑在内的脑区。这些区域参与自传体记忆和相关的情绪反应。此外，它们受早期AD病理影响最小，从而为长期熟悉的音乐记忆留存提供了神经基础。
长期熟悉的音乐激活了一个由前额叶、情感、运动、听觉和皮质下区域（小脑、壳核、边缘结构）组成的双侧网络。相对于最近听到的音乐，这种广泛的激活可能为认知受损的老年人中长期音乐记忆似乎相对保留的原因提供结构和功能方面的线索。
