Read the open-access, full-text article here:
http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0001679
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Neural Substrates of Spontaneous Musical Performance: An fMRI Study of
Jazz Improvisation
To investigate the neural substrates that underlie spontaneous musical
performance, we examined improvisation in professional jazz pianists
using functional MRI. By employing two paradigms that differed widely
in musical complexity, we found that improvisation (compared to
production of over-learned musical sequences) was consistently
characterized by a dissociated pattern of activity in the prefrontal
cortex: extensive deactivation of dorsolateral prefrontal and lateral
orbital regions with focal activation of the medial prefrontal
(frontal polar) cortex. Such a pattern may reflect a combination of
psychological processes required for spontaneous improvisation, in
which internally motivated, stimulus-independent behaviors unfold in
the absence of central processes that typically mediate
self-monitoring and conscious volitional control of ongoing
performance. Changes in prefrontal activity during improvisation were
accompanied by widespread activation of neocortical sensorimotor areas
(that mediate the organization and execution of musical performance)
as well as deactivation of limbic structures (that regulate motivation
and emotional tone). This distributed neural pattern may provide a
cognitive context that enables the emergence of spontaneous creative
activity.
