Musicians have enhanced subcortical auditory and audiovisual processing of speech and music

TLDR

Musical training is known to modify cortical organization. The study shows that musical training’s cortical modifications extend to subcortical sensory structures and generalize to speech processing. Musicians exhibit earlier and larger brainstem responses to speech and music, enhanced phase‑locking correlated with practice duration, and greater audiovisual temporal and frequency encoding, demonstrating practice‑related changes in early sensory processing.

Abstract

Musical training is known to modify cortical organization. Here, we show that such modifications extend to subcortical sensory structures and generalize to processing of speech. Musicians had earlier and larger brainstem responses than nonmusician controls to both speech and music stimuli presented in auditory and audiovisual conditions, evident as early as 10 ms after acoustic onset. Phase-locking to stimulus periodicity, which likely underlies perception of pitch, was enhanced in musicians and strongly correlated with length of musical practice. In addition, viewing videos of speech (lip-reading) and music (instrument being played) enhanced temporal and frequency encoding in the auditory brainstem, particularly in musicians. These findings demonstrate practice-related changes in the early sensory encoding of auditory and audiovisual information.