Performing music is a multimodal experience involving the visual, auditory, and somatosensory modalities as well as the motor system. Therefore, musical training is an excellent model to study multimodal brain plasticity. Indeed, we have previously shown that short-term piano practice increase the magnetoencephalographic (MEG) response to melodic material in novice players. Here we investigate ...

This study examined the young children's abilities to switch from rhythm production, with short inter-tap intervals (ITIs), to temporal interval production, with long ITI (>1 s), in a sensorimotor synchronization task. Children aged 3- and 5-year-olds were given six sessions of synchronization. In a control group, they had to synchronize their ITI to an inter-stimulus interval (ISI) of 4 s. In ...

Beta oscillations have been predominantly observed in sensorimotor cortices and basal ganglia structures they are thought to be involved somatosensory processing motor control. Although beta activity is a distinct feature of healthy pathological processing, the role this rhythm still under debate. Here we review recent findings about during experimental manipulations (i.e., drugs brain stimulat...

Rhythm perception and synchronization have been extensively investigated in the auditory domain, as they underlie means of human communication such as music and speech. Although recent studies suggest comparable mechanisms for synchronizing with periodically moving visual objects, the extent to which it applies to ecologically relevant information, such as the rhythm of complex biological motio...

In a recent study by Sellers et al. (1) a patient in locked-in state after brainstem stroke was able to successfully communicate via electroencephalography (EEG) based brain computer interface (BCI) employing a P300 speller paradigm. BCI uses the brain signal, which can either be the electrical signal (electroencephalography-EEG) (2) or a change in hemodynamic activity [functional magnetic reso...

When we listen to music, we can mentally control howwe perceive the beat. This ability is thought to be subserved by sensorimotor imagery, having top-down effects on attentional-allocation and perception. Here, we examine whether imagined “up and down” gestures can support an internal generation of metrical accent in rhythmic sequences. We also examine how this type of motor imagery interacts w...

Mu rhythm is an idling rhythm that originates in the sensorimotor cortex during rest. The frequency of mu rhythm, which is well established in adults, is 8-12 Hz, whereas the limited results available from children suggest a frequency as low as 5.4 Hz at 6 months of age, which gradually increases to the adult value. Understanding the normal development of mu rhythm has important theoretical and...

Cortical oscillations in the beta band (13-35 Hz) are known to be modulated by the GABAergic agonist benzodiazepine. To investigate the mechanisms generating the approximately 20-Hz oscillations in the human cortex, we administered benzodiazepines to healthy adults and monitored cortical oscillatory activity by means of magnetoencephalography. Benzodiazepine increased the power and decreased th...