To musicians, the message is in the meter: Pre-attentive neuronal responses to incongruent rhythm are left-lateralized in musicians.
Vuust, Peter a,b,*; Pallesen, Karen Johanne a,c,d; Bailey, Christopher a,c; van Zuijen, Titia L. e; Gjedde, Albert a; Roepstorff, Andreas a,f; stergaard, Leif a[script phi]
[Article] Neuroimage. 24(2):560-564, January 15, 2005.

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: Musicians exchange non-verbal cues as messages when they play together. This is particularly true in music with a sketchy outline. Jazz musicians receive and interpret the cues when performance parts from a regular pattern of rhythm, suggesting that they enjoy a highly developed sensitivity to subtle deviations of rhythm. We demonstrate that pre-attentive brain responses recorded with magnetoencephalography to rhythmic incongruence are left-lateralized in expert jazz musicians and right-lateralized in musically inept non-musicians. The left-lateralization of the pre-attentive responses suggests functional adaptation of the brain to a task of communication, which is much like that of language.

(C) 2005Elsevier, Inc.