Having a small talk with someone is something so natural that we forget that behind this daily activity there is a highly complex brain process. Every time we converse with someone, the brain regions involved in speech are synchronized with the waves of acoustic signals that the words emit. This synchronization between the brain and the sound wave is what facilitates the correct decoding of messages and, when this is interrupted, a disconnection occurs that can cause inattention, but also, in some cases, lead to linguistic disorders.
Within this field of scientific research, different studies have shown that musical training has a positive impact on the brain's ability to synchronize with the sounds it perceives in its environment. This increased ability to rhythmic and acoustic synchronization can facilitate language skills.
In this context, the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL) has launched the project "The benefits of music on brain rhythms", an initiative whose mission is to discover whether the neuronal activity of people with musical training presents significant differences when they listen to sounds or words with respect to those who have not had that trajectory.
This research is part of a collaboration agreement signed in November 2021 with the High Center of Music of the Basque Country - Musikene and will focus on studying the cognitive capacity of music experts who are part of the musical entity's teaching staff through the analysis of their response to different sound stimuli. The information collected will be compared with that obtained by a control group made up of people who lack musical experience.
"With Musikene we seek to explore the connection between music and speech in order to assess the benefits of applying musical experiences in the learning processes of the youngest or in therapies for developmental language disorders, such as dyslexia", explains Nicola Molinaro, ikerbasque researcher at the BCBL and who is leading the project.
The results of this research could open avenues for the use of music as an enabling tool in the application of new intervention strategies in people with linguistic disorders.
Specifically, the Musikene professors participating in the research will complete two sessions of magnetoencephalography, behavioral tests and magnetic resonance imaging in the laboratories of the San Sebastian research center as well as an online questionnaire with which the BCBL will be able to find out the characteristics of each person.
«We will measure in the tests how people who are experts in music perceive very common and natural rhythms or sound stimuli, which occur in our day to day life, in order to check the way in which their brain decodes each stimulus. We will also study the ability of these people to predict the stimuli they are going to receive, their ability to segregate the stimulus from background noise or their ability to synchronize speech with the sound they hear”, adds Molinaro.
This novel experimental strategy to assess whether there is a relationship between musical learning and brain regions dedicated to language skills will also be supported by the use of computational models.
«This project, pioneering for its complete analysis, can have a great impact on the scientific and musical communities, helping to value the benefits of studying an instrument. Music may be the key to open the minds of vulnerable populations with linguistic difficulties, either due to developmental language disorders (such as dyslexia or stuttering) or in cases of neurodegeneration of these abilities", concludes the ikerbasque and BCBL researcher.
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