Musical Experience Relates to Insula-Based Functional Connectivity in Older Adults

Abstract

Engaging in musical activities throughout the lifespan may protect against age-related cognitive decline and modify structural and functional connectivity in the brain. Prior research suggests that musical experience modulates brain regions that integrate different modalities of sensory information, such as the insula. Most of this research has been performed in individuals classified as professional musicians; however, general musical experiences across the lifespan may also confer beneficial effects on brain health in older adults. The current study investigated whether general musical experience, characterized using the Goldsmith Music Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI), was associated with functional connectivity in older adults (age = 65.7 ± 4.4, n = 69). We tested whether Gold-MSI was associated with individual differences in the functional connectivity of three a priori hypothesis-defined seed regions in the insula (i.e., dorsal anterior, ventral anterior, and posterior insula). We found that older adults with more musical experience showed greater functional connectivity between the dorsal anterior insula and the precentral and postcentral gyrus, and between the ventral anterior insula and diverse brain regions, including the insula and prefrontal cortex, and decreased functional connectivity between the ventral anterior insula and thalamus (voxel p < 0.01, cluster FWE p < 0.05). Follow-up correlation analyses showed that the singing ability subscale score was key in driving the association between functional connectivity differences and musical experience. Overall, our findings suggest that musical experience, even among non-professional musicians, is related to functional brain reorganization in older adults.

Keywords: functional connectivity; insula; music; older adults.

Figure A1

The correlation plot between Gold-SMI subscale scores and lateralization index of connectivity between the ventral anterior insula and inferior frontal gyrus (vAI_InfFront), the ventral anterior insula and superior frontal gyrus (vAI_Supe), the ventral anterior insula and thalamus (vAI_Thalamus), and (dAI_Precentral) dorsal anterior insula and the precentral/postcentral gyrus (dAI_Precentral). Dots show the significant correlation pairs. Positive correlations are shown in red and negative correlations are shown in blue. Size of dots corresponds to effect size. Bonferroni correction was applied (p = 0.01).

Figure 1

Musical score distribution of current sample compared against normed scores. Solid dots in each violin plot are the median scores from the normed data from Müllensiefen et al., 2014.

Figure 2

Region of interest (seeds) in bilateral dorsal (red), ventral anterior (orange) and posterior (yellow) insula.

Figure 3

Seed-based connectivity associations with Gold-MSI score. (a) Cortical results from dorsal anterior insula seed. (b) Cortical results from ventral anterior insula seed. (c) Subcortical results from ventral anterior insula seed.

Figure 4

(a) Effect sizes of four correlation pairs between seeds and clusters from Table 1. (b) Correlation table between seed functional connectivity and music subscale scores. In (a) and (b), vAI_InfFront refers to the functional connectivity between bilateral ventral anterior insula seed and right insula cluster, right inferior frontal region and frontal operculum, and vAI_R_InfFront refers to the connectivity result from the right anterior insula; vAI_Supe refers to the functional connectivity between bilateral ventral anterior insula seed and bilateral superior frontal gyrus cluster, and vAI_L_Supe refers to the connectivity result from the left ventral anterior insula; vAI_Thalamus refers to the functional connectivity between bilateral ventral anterior insula seed and bilateral thalamus cluster, and vAI_L_Thalamus refers to the connectivity result from the left ventral anterior insula; dAI_Precentral refers to the functional connectivity between bilateral dorsal anterior insula seed and precentral and postcentral gyrus cluster, and dAI_R_Precentral refers to the connectivity result from the right dorsal anterior insula. In (b), dots show the significant correlation pairs. Positive correlations are shown in red and negative correlations are shown in blue. Size of dots corresponds to effect size. (c) Seed-based functional connectivity from ventral anterior insula associated with score on singing ability.