Plasticity of the neuro-auditory network in musically trained adolescents II

研究音乐大脑从童年到成年的可塑性变化是一项巨大的挑战。除了儿童时期的研究对象外，迄今为止还没有针对青少年进行的神经系统纵向研究，以调查音乐性与大脑成熟之间的关系。然而，系统的神经科学纵向研究是必要的，以便理清成熟因素、学习诱发因素和易感性因素之间的相互作用。在我的海森堡奖学金项目的第一阶段，我们成功地完成了第四个测量时间点，作为之前进行的纵向研究“音频和神经可塑性和音乐学习”（2009-2015）的一部分，包括对小学儿童（7-12岁）的三个后续测量。基于长期的联系和家庭的高度积极性，有可能获得先前220名青春期年龄（13-17岁）的受试者中约90%的人再次参加海德堡大学医院的心理声学，脑磁成像和磁共振断层扫描测量。目前可用的结果证实，在青春期积极演奏乐器可以抵消听力缺陷以及发育和学习障碍，如AD(H)D或阅读障碍。这些结果的重要潜力在于对发育障碍进行客观的、基于大脑的早期诊断。这是一个问题，目前的建议进行第五次随访测量包括所有以前的调查参与者在青年成年（19-20岁）。这将使我们能够分析所观察到的个体神经听觉特征的成熟和可塑性，这是一个前所未有的12年的生命周期，从小学年龄到成年。研究的重点是音乐实践中自然成熟和训练诱导的可塑性的具体标志，这些标志应该在音乐天才、非音乐家和有发育和学习障碍的参与者之间进行比较。应该进行全面的分析，以了解听觉功能的发展和/或稳定性，听觉皮层和相关大脑网络中的声音处理以及特殊的音乐技能和听觉功能障碍之间的关系。这种方法有望成功地解释杰出听觉技能和听觉功能障碍的神经基础，在听力治疗、诊断和音乐教学应用方面具有相当大的潜力。

The investigation of plastic changes of the musical brain from childhood to adulthood is a great challenge. Besides studies that included subjects in the age of childhood, up to date no neurological longitudinal study has been conducted with adolescents to investigate the relationship between musicality and brain maturation. Systematic neuroscientific longitudinal studies are necessary, however, in order to disentangle the interplay between maturational, learning-induced and predispositional factors.During the first period of my Heisenberg Fellowship programme we succeeded to complete the 4th measurement timepoint as part of the previously conducted longitudinal study “Audio and neuroplasticity and musical learning” (2009-2015), including three preceding follow-up measurements with elementary school children (age range 7-12). Based on the longlasting contact and high motivation of the families it was possible to gain ~90% of the previous 220 subjects in puberty age (13-17 years) to participate one more time in the psychoacoustic, magnetencephalographic and magnetic resonance tomographic measurements at the University Hospital of Heidelberg. The currently available results corroborate that playing an instrument actively just in the age of puberty counteracts hearing deficits as well as developmental and learning disorders such as AD(H)D or dyslexia. An essential potential of these results lies in an objective, brain based early diagnostic of developmental disorders. It is an issue of the present proposal to conduct a 5th follow-up measurement including all previous investigated participants at the age of young adulthood (19-20 years). This will allow to analyse the matuartion and plasticity of the observed individual neuro-auditory profiles in a never before attained lifetime period of 12 years from elemantary school age until adulthood. The focus is on specific markers of natural maturation and training-induced plasticity by musical practice, that should be compared between musically gifted subjects, non-musicians and participants with developmental and learning disorders. Comprehensive analyses should be performed to understand the relationship between the development and / or stability of hearing functions, sound processing in the auditory cortex and associated brain networks as well as exceptional musically skills and auditory dysfunctions. This approach is expected to succeed in explaining neural foundations of both outstanding auditory skills and auditory dysfunctions, with considerable potential for hearing-therapeutical, diagnostical and musicpedagogical applications.