From Sound to Action: The Premotor Cortex’s Dual Role in Learning Direct and Indirect Melodies

Poster Session D - Monday, April 15, 2024, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Sheraton Hall ABC

Chad Vachon¹ (chadv9745@gmail.com), Bryanna Campbell¹, Lukas Kires¹, Marin Hoh¹, Maria Psomas¹, Connor Spiech¹, Carlotta Lega², Virginia Penhune¹; ¹Concordia University, ²University of Pavia

The production of music necessitates the brain's capacity to connect musical sounds with the corresponding physical movements. This process involves the premotor cortex (PMC), comprising the ventral (vPMC) and dorsal (dPMC) regions, within the auditory dorsal stream of the brain, a critical area for the learning and the expression of auditory-motor associations. While the vPMC is associated with direct, one-to-one associations between objects and actions within the visual domain, the dPMC engages in complex, abstract, and flexible associations. However, the specific roles of the vPMC and dPMC in auditory-motor learning in the context of direct versus indirect associations are unclear. In this study, we applied repetitive 1 Hz inhibitory transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to 126 participants, 21 participants per each of the dpmc, vpmc and V1 (control group), prior to training 45 five-note melodies with either a direct, orderly key-tone mapping, or an indirect, random key-tone mapping on a piano keyboard. We measured the change in the recall of these key-tone associations pre and post training via a pitch-matching task, wherein subjects had to identify and respond to pitches by pressing the corresponding keys without auditory feedback. Results show differences in both learning and pitch matching between V1, dpmc, and vpmc for direct or indirect auditory-motor associations. This suggests that the vPMC and dPMC are crucial in learning auditory-motor associations, with the recall of direct associations being more reliant on the premotor cortex. Additional results from the unconventional condition will be presented in the poster.

Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Motor control