Introduction: Music tempo has strong clinical maneuverability and positive emotional effect in music therapy, which can directly evoke multiple emotions and dynamic neural changes in the whole brain. However, the precise relationship between music tempo and its emotional effects remains unclear. The present study aimed to investigate the dynamic network connectivity (dFNC) associated with emotions elicited by music at different tempi. Materials and Methods: We obtained emotion ratings of fast-tempo (155-170 beats per minute [bpm]), middle-tempo (90 bpm), and slow-tempo (50-60 bpm) piano music from 40 participants both during and after functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Group independent component analysis (ICA), sliding time window correlations, and k-means clustering were used to assess the dFNC of fMRI data. Paired t-tests were conducted to compare the difference of neural networks. Results: (1) Fast music was associated with higher ratings of emotional valence and arousal, which were accompanied with increasing dFNC between somatomotor (SM) and cingulo-opercular (CO) networks and decreasing dFNC between frontoparietal and SM networks. (2) Even with stronger activation in auditory (AUD) networks, slow music was associated with weaker emotion than fast music, with decreasing functional network connectivity across the brain and the participation of default mode (DM). (3) Middle-tempo music elicited moderate emotional activation with the most stable dFNC in the whole brain. Conclusion: Faster music increases neural activity in the SM and CO regions, increasing the intensity of the emotional experience. In contrast, slower music was associated with decreasing engagement of AUD and stable engagement of DM, resulting in a weak emotional experience. These findings suggested that the time-varying aspects of functional connectivity can help to uncover the dynamic neural substrates of tempo-evoked emotion while listening to music.
Keywords: arousal; dFNC; music-evoked emotion; tempo; valence.