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Music in the first days of life

Daniela Perani¹, Maria Cristina Saccuman², Paola Scifo³, Danilo Spada⁴, Guido Andreolli¹, Rosanna Rovelli⁵, Cristina Baldoli⁶ & Stefan Koelsch⁷

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1. Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy
2. Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Cognitive Neuroscience Center, Milan, Italy
3. San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Nuclear Medicine, Milan, Italy
4. Psychology Institute, School of Medicine, University of Milan, Italy
5. San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Department of Neonatology, Milan, Italy
6. San Raffaele Scientific Institute, C.E.R.M.A.C. , Milan, Italy
7. Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science, Leipzig, Germany

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Document Type:

Manuscript

Date:

Received 23 July 2008 14:15 UTC; Posted 29 July 2008

Subjects:

Neuroscience

Tags:

• auditory cortex
• frontal cortex
• fMRI
• infants
• prosody
• MUSIC

Abstract:

In adults, specific neural systems with right-hemispheric weighting are necessary to process pitch, melody and harmony, as well as structure and meaning emerging from musical sequences. To which extent does this neural specialization result from exposure to music or from neurobiological predispositions? We used fMRI to measure brain activity in 1 to 3 days old newborns while listening to Western tonal music, and to the same excerpts altered, so as to include tonal violations or dissonance. Music caused predominant right hemisphere activations in primary and higher-order auditory cortex. For altered music, activations were seen in the left inferior frontal cortex and limbic structures. Thus, the newborn's brain is able to plenty receive music and to figure out even small perceptual and structural differences in the music sequences. This neural architecture present at birth provides us the potential to process basic and complex aspects of music, a uniquely human capacity.

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This document is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

How to cite this document:

Perani, Daniela, Saccuman, Maria Cristina, Scifo, Paola, Spada, Danilo, Andreolli, Guido, Rovelli, Rosanna, Baldoli, Cristina, and Koelsch, Stefan. Music in the first days of life. Available from Nature Precedings <http://hdl.handle.net/10101/npre.2008.2114.1> (2008)

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