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“痴迷歌曲”的现象很少受到科学的关注，也许是因为它的私密性、良性和意想不到的性质。在这项建议中，我们提出，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，痴迷歌曲代表了一个研究大脑功能的宝贵机会。该提案有四个目标。第一个目标是确定痴迷歌曲的特征，并检查它们是否可以被录制和分析。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曲调(例如，加拿大曲棍球之夜，铃儿响叮当等)可以引发强迫症歌曲的可能性。第三个目标将检验这一假设，即痴迷的歌曲激活了特定的大脑区域，这些区域与音乐意象和感知所涉及的区域相似，但也不同。更具体地说，我们将研究大脑结构的作用，这些结构涉及反馈信号，使来自环境的图像和真实声音有所不同，以及大脑结构涉及到无法在任务之间进行切换。第四个目标是验证这样一个假设，即通过应用定向经颅磁刺激来抑制特定大脑区域的活动，可以调节强迫症患者的歌曲。

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.