Brain.fm, Brooklyn, NY, USA.
Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA.
Commun Biol. 2024 Oct 23;7(1):1376. doi: 10.1038/s42003-024-07026-3.
Background music is widely used to sustain attention, but little is known about what musical properties aid attention. This may be due to inter-individual variability in neural responses to music. Here we find that music with amplitude modulations added at specific rates can sustain attention differentially for those with varying levels of attentional difficulty. We first tested the hypothesis that music with strong amplitude modulation would improve sustained attention, and found it did so when it occurred early in the experiment. Rapid modulations in music elicited greater activity in attentional networks in fMRI, as well as greater stimulus-brain coupling in EEG. Finally, to test the idea that specific modulation properties would differentially affect listeners based on their level of attentional difficulty, we parametrically manipulated the depth and rate of amplitude modulations inserted in otherwise-identical music, and found that beta-range modulations helped more than other modulation ranges for participants with more ADHD symptoms. Results suggest the possibility of an oscillation-based neural mechanism for targeted music to support improved cognitive performance.
背景音乐被广泛用于维持注意力，但人们对有助于注意力的音乐属性知之甚少。这可能是由于个体间对音乐的神经反应存在差异。在这里，我们发现，以特定速率添加幅度调制的音乐可以为注意力难度不同的人提供不同程度的注意力维持。我们首先测试了这样一个假设，即具有强烈幅度调制的音乐可以改善持续性注意力，我们发现当它在实验早期出现时确实如此。音乐中的快速调制会在 fMRI 中引起注意力网络更大的活动，以及在 EEG 中引起更大的刺激-大脑耦合。最后，为了检验这样一种观点，即特定的调制特性会根据听众的注意力难度水平而产生不同的影响，我们对插入在其他方面相同的音乐中的幅度调制的深度和速率进行了参数化操纵，结果发现，对于注意力缺陷多动障碍症状较多的参与者，β频段调制比其他调制范围更有帮助。结果表明，基于振荡的神经机制有可能针对特定音乐，以支持认知表现的改善。
