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AJNR - American Journal of Neuroradiology

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American Journal of Neuroradiology 27:1101-1106, May 2006
© 2006 American Society of Neuroradiology

FUNCTIONAL

Positron-Emission Tomography of Brain Regions Activated by Recognition of Familiar Music

M. Satoh^a, K. Takeda^b, K. Nagata^c, E. Shimosegawa^d and S. Kuzuhara^a

^a Department of Neurology, Mie University School of Medicine, Mie, Japan
^b Department of Neurology, Japanese Red Cross Medical Center, Tokyo, Japan
^c Departments of Neurology, Research Institute for Brain and Blood Vessels, Akita, Japan
^d Departments of Radiology, Research Institute for Brain and Blood Vessels, Akita, Japan

Address correspondence to Masayuki Satoh, Department of Neurology, Mie University School of Medicine, 2-174 Edobashi, Tsu, Mie, 514-8507 Japan

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: We can easily recognize familiar music by listening to only one or 2 of its opening bars, but the brain regions that participate in this cognitive processing remain undetermined. We used positron-emission tomography (PET) to study changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) that occur during listening to familiar music.

METHODS: We used a PET subtraction technique to elucidate the brain regions associated with the recognition of familiar melodies such as well-known nursery tunes. Nonmusicians performed 2 kinds of musical tasks: judging the familiarity of musical pieces (familiarity task) and detecting deliberately altered notes in the pieces (alteration-detecting task).

RESULTS: During the familiarity task, bilateral anterior portions of bilateral temporal lobes, superior temporal regions, and parahippocampal gyri were activated. The alteration-detecting task bilaterally activated regions in the precunei, superior/inferior parietal lobules, and lateral surface of frontal lobes, which seemed to show a correlation with the analysis of music.

CONCLUSION: We hypothesize that during the familiarity task, activated brain regions participate in retrieval from long-term memory and verbal and emotional processing of familiar melodies. Our results reinforced the hypothesis reported in the literature as a result of group and case studies, that temporal lobe regions participate in the recognition of familiar melodies.

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