Dai Ruijiao, Toiviainen Petri, Campo Fulvia Francesca, Cantou Pauline, Fasano Maria Celeste, Kleber Boris, Vuust Peter, Brattico Elvira
Centre of Excellence in Music, Mind, Body and Brain, Department of Music, Art and Cultural Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland.
Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2025 Sep 11;19:1651074. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2025.1651074. eCollection 2025.
Engagement with music is a significant aspect of adolescents' lives and this interest blossoms during preadolescence. Compared to the extensive body of research focused on adult music brain function, relatively few studies have examined the neural connections involved in music listening among adolescents and preadolescents. This study aims to investigate the dynamic patterns of brain functional connectivity and the transition processes during naturalistic music listening in preadolescents, measuring the transition of brain states from one time point to the next.
We employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity of 24 healthy preadolescents aged 8 to 12 years during both music listening and rest conditions. Subsequently, we applied a dynamic functional connectivity analysis, Leading Eigenvector Dynamics Analysis (LEiDA), to extract distinct brain states (phase locking patterns) and the corresponding transition processes.
Findings show that occipital brain regions are actively engaged during music listening, possibly linked to attention regulation, visual imagery, and emotional processing. Additionally, we observed a more frequent transition from the default mode network (DMN) state to an orbitofrontal limbic state during music listening, evidencing cognitive shifts that facilitate emotional and reward processing. In contrast, during rest, we obtained a switch to the sensorimotor auditory network, suggesting intrinsic fluctuations in multiple networks.
These findings deepen our understanding of subcortical and frontal brain connectivity in preadolescents during music listening, with implications for integrating music into educational practices to support learning and cognitive development.
参与音乐活动是青少年生活的一个重要方面，这种兴趣在青春期前就开始蓬勃发展。与大量关注成人音乐脑功能的研究相比，研究青少年和青春期前儿童音乐聆听所涉及神经连接的研究相对较少。本研究旨在调查青春期前儿童在自然状态下音乐聆听过程中脑功能连接的动态模式和转变过程，测量脑状态从一个时间点到下一个时间点的转变。
我们采用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来测量24名年龄在8至12岁的健康青春期前儿童在音乐聆听和休息状态下的脑活动。随后，我们应用动态功能连接分析，即主导特征向量动力学分析（LEiDA），来提取不同的脑状态（锁相模式）和相应的转变过程。
研究结果表明，枕叶脑区在音乐聆听过程中活跃参与，可能与注意力调节、视觉意象和情绪处理有关。此外，我们观察到在音乐聆听过程中，从默认模式网络（DMN）状态到眶额边缘状态的转变更为频繁，这证明了有助于情绪和奖赏处理的认知转变。相比之下，在休息时，我们观察到转变为感觉运动听觉网络，这表明多个网络存在内在波动。
这些发现加深了我们对青春期前儿童在音乐聆听过程中皮层下和额叶脑连接的理解，对将音乐融入教育实践以支持学习和认知发展具有启示意义。
