Comparing rhythm and melody discrimination in young children using fMRI

摘要: In the adult brain, rhythm and melody processing have been found to show different hemispheric dominance, with the left hemisphere predominantly involved in rhythm processing and the right hemisphere predominantly involved in melody processing. We used a novel, child-friendly scanning protocol to examine the neural basis of rhythm and melody processing in young children (mean age 6y 4m, n= 33). Children were asked to listen to a pair of musical phrases, either rhythmic or melodic, and to indicate whether the phrases were the same or different, using a button press response. In a silence condition the children simply performed a button press on cue. FMRI data were acquired using a sparse temporal sampling technique with clustered volume acquisitions, taking advantage of the natural delay in the cerebrovascular response to neuronal activity. This technique limits the amount of scanner noise and avoids …