Obsessive songs: phenomenology and neural substrates

谁从来没有经历过一首歌在脑海中“卡住”，一遍又一遍地重复呢？这种被称为“耳虫”或“强迫性歌曲”的现象几乎没有受到科学的关注，也许是因为它的私人、良性和意想不到的性质。在这个提议中，我们提出强迫性歌曲代表了一个宝贵的机会，通过感知、情感驱动、认知功能、记忆和行为机制之间的相互作用来研究大脑的功能。该提案有四个目标。第一个目标是确定强迫性歌曲的特征，并检查它们是否可以被记录和分析。第二个目标是调查在实验室中，通过暴露于朗朗上口的流行歌曲（例如加拿大曲棍球之夜的国歌，铃儿响叮当等），是否有可能引发强迫性歌曲。第三个目标是测试一个假设，即强迫性歌曲激活了与音乐意象和感知相关的大脑区域相似但又不同的特定区域。更具体地说，我们将研究与反馈信号有关的大脑结构的作用，反馈信号使环境中的图像和真实声音之间产生差异，以及与无法在任务之间进行切换有关的大脑结构。第四个目标是测试强迫性歌曲可以通过应用定向经颅磁刺激抑制特定大脑区域活动来调节的假设。

Who has never experienced a song getting "stuck" in the mind, repeating itself over and over? This phenomenon, called "earworm" or "obsessive songs", has received little scientific attention, perhaps because of its private, benign and unexpected nature. In this proposal we propose that obsessive songs represent an invaluable opportunity to investigate the mind's functioning through the interplay between perception, emotional drive, cognitive function, memory and behavioural mechanisms. The proposal has four objectives. The first objective is to establish the characteristics of obsessive songs and examine if they can be recorded and analyzed. The second objective is to investigate the possibility that obsessive songs can be elicited in the laboratory by exposure to catchy popular tunes (e.g. the Hockey Night in Canada anthem, Jingle Bells, etc.). The third objective will test the hypothesis that obsessive songs activate specific brain areas similar but also distinct from the ones involved in musical imagery and perception. More specifically, we will examine the role of brain structures that are involved in feedback signals that make the difference between imagery and real sounds from the environment, and brain structures that are involved in the inability to perform switching between tasks. The fourth objective is to test the hypothesis that obsessive songs can be modulated by inhibiting specific brain region activity by applying targeted transcranial magnetic stimulation.