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Meta-Analysis
. 2018 Nov 19;13(11):e0207213.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0207213. eCollection 2018.

Recruitment of the motor system during music listening: An ALE meta-analysis of fMRI data

Chelsea L Gordon  1 , Patrice R Cobb  2 , Ramesh Balasubramaniam  1
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Recruitment of the motor system during music listening: An ALE meta-analysis of fMRI data

Chelsea L Gordon et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Several neuroimaging studies have shown that listening to music activates brain regions that reside in the motor system, even when there is no overt movement. However, many of these studies report the activation of varying motor system areas that include the primary motor cortex, supplementary motor area, dorsal and ventral pre-motor areas and parietal regions. In order to examine what specific roles are played by various motor regions during music perception, we used activation likelihood estimation (ALE) to conduct a meta-analysis of neuroimaging literature on passive music listening. After extensive search of the literature, 42 studies were analyzed resulting in a total of 386 unique subjects contributing 694 activation foci in total. As suspected, auditory activations were found in the bilateral superior temporal gyrus, transverse temporal gyrus, insula, pyramis, bilateral precentral gyrus, and bilateral medial frontal gyrus. We also saw the widespread activation of motor networks including left and right lateral premotor cortex, right primary motor cortex, and the left cerebellum. These results suggest a central role of the motor system in music and rhythm perception. We discuss these findings in the context of the Action Simulation for Auditory Prediction (ASAP) model and other predictive coding accounts of brain function.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Flow diagram of study review.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Significant clusters from meta-analysis of passive listening tasks in healthy volunteers (family-wise error correction (P<0.05)).
The 3D brain is shown to indicate slice levels.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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