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White Matter Connectivity Reflects Success in Musical Improvisation

Tima Zeng, Emily Przysinda, Charles Pfeifer, Cameron Arkin, View ORCID ProfilePsyche Loui
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/218024
Tima Zeng
1Wesleyan University
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Emily Przysinda
1Wesleyan University
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Charles Pfeifer
2University of Rochester
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Cameron Arkin
1Wesleyan University
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Psyche Loui
1Wesleyan University
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  • ORCID record for Psyche Loui
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Abstract

Creativity is the ability to produce work that is novel, high in quality, and appropriate to an audience. One domain of creativity comes from musical improvisation, in which individuals spontaneously create novel auditory-motor sequences that are aesthetically rewarding. Here we test the hypothesis that individual differences in creative behavior are subserved by mesial and lateral differences in white matter connectivity. We compare jazz improvising musicians against classical (non-improvising) musicians and non-musician control subjects in musical performance and diffusion tensor imaging. Subjects improvised on short musical motifs and underwent DTI. Statistical measures of fluency and entropy for musical performances predicted expert ratings of creativity for each performance. Tract-Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) showed higher Fractional Anisotropy (FA) in the cingulate cortex and corpus callosum in jazz musicians. FA in the cingulate also correlated with entropy. Probabilistic tractography from these mesial regions to lateral seed regions of the arcuate fasciculus, a pathway known to be involved in sound perception and production, showed mesial-to-lateral connectivity that correlated with improvisation training. Results suggest that white matter connectivity between lateral and mesial structures may integrate domain-general and domain-specific components of creativity.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted November 11, 2017.
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White Matter Connectivity Reflects Success in Musical Improvisation
Tima Zeng, Emily Przysinda, Charles Pfeifer, Cameron Arkin, Psyche Loui
bioRxiv 218024; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/218024
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White Matter Connectivity Reflects Success in Musical Improvisation
Tima Zeng, Emily Przysinda, Charles Pfeifer, Cameron Arkin, Psyche Loui
bioRxiv 218024; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/218024

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