RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Stimulating music supports attention in listeners with attentional difficulties
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.10.01.462777
DO 10.1101/2021.10.01.462777
A1 Kevin JP Woods
A1 Gonçalo Sampaio
A1 Tedra James
A1 Emily Przysinda
A1 Adam Hewett
A1 Andrea E Spencer
A1 Benjamin Morillon
A1 Psyche Loui
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/10/03/2021.10.01.462777.abstract
AB Background music is widely used to sustain attention, but little is known about what musical properties aid attention. This may be due to inter-individual variability in neural responses to music. We test the hypothesis that music can sustain attention by affecting oscillations via acoustic amplitude modulation, differentially for those with varying levels of attentional difficulty. We first show that heavily-modulated music improves sustained attention for participants with more ADHD symptoms. FMRI showed this music elicited greater activity in attentional networks in this group only, and EEG showed greater stimulus-brain coupling for this group in response to the heavily-modulated music. Finally, we parametrically manipulated the depth and rate of amplitude modulations inserted in otherwise-identical music, and found that beta-range modulations helped more than other frequency ranges for participants with more ADHD symptoms. Results suggest the possibility of an oscillation-based neural mechanism for targeted music to support improved cognitive performance.Competing Interest StatementKevin JP Woods is an employee of Brain.fm. Adam Hewett was an employee of Brain.fm when the work was conducted.