Unlocking the musical brain: A proof-of-concept study on playing the piano in MRI scanner with naturalistic stimuli

Alicja M Olszewska; Dawid Droździel; Maciej Gaca; Agnieszka Kulesza; Wojciech Obrębski; Jakub Kowalewski; Agnieszka Widlarz; Artur Marchewka; Aleksandra M Herman

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e17877

Unlocking the musical brain: A proof-of-concept study on playing the piano in MRI scanner with naturalistic stimuli

Heliyon. 2023 Jul 11;9(7):e17877. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e17877. eCollection 2023 Jul.

Authors

Alicja M Olszewska¹, Dawid Droździel¹, Maciej Gaca¹, Agnieszka Kulesza¹, Wojciech Obrębski^{2

3}, Jakub Kowalewski³, Agnieszka Widlarz⁴, Artur Marchewka¹, Aleksandra M Herman¹

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Brain Imaging, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 3 Pasteur Street, 02-093, Warsaw, Poland.
² Department of Nuclear and Medical Electronics, Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology, Warsaw University of Technology, 1 Politechniki Square, 00-661 Warsaw, Poland.
³ 10 Murarska Street, 08-110 Siedlce, Poland.
⁴ Chair of Rhythmics and Piano Improvisation, Department of Choir Conducting and Singing, Music Education and Rhythmics, The Chopin University of Music, Okolnik 2 Street, 00-368 Warsaw, Poland.

Abstract

Music is a universal human phenomenon, and can be studied for itself or as a window into the understanding of the brain. Few neuroimaging studies investigate actual playing in the MRI scanner, likely because of the lack of available experimental hardware and analysis tools. Here, we offer an innovative paradigm that addresses this issue in neuromusicology using naturalistic, polyphonic musical stimuli, presents a commercially available MRI-compatible piano, and a flexible approach to quantify participant's performance. We show how making errors while playing can be investigated using an altered auditory feedback paradigm. In the spirit of open science, we make our experimental paradigms and analysis tools available to other researchers studying pianists in MRI. Altogether, we present a proof-of-concept study which shows the feasibility of playing the novel piano in MRI, and a step towards using more naturalistic stimuli.

Keywords: Error monitoring; MRI-Compatible keyboard; Music production; Naturalistic paradigm; Neuromusicology.