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Contributions To Singing Ability By The Posterior Portion of The Superior Temporal Gyrus of The on-language-dominant Hemisphere: First Evidence From Subdural Cortical Stimulation, Wada Testing, and FMRI
Institution:
 1Department of Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115, USA. rosuarez@bwh.harvard.edu
2Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
3Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
4National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
Publisher:
 Elsevier Science
Publication Date:
 Mar-2010
Journal:
 Cortex
Volume Number:
 46
Issue Number:
 3
Pages:
 343-53
Citation:
 Cortex. 2010 Mar;46(3):343-53.
PubMed ID:
 19570530
PMCID:
 PMC2821975
Keywords:
 Singing laterality, Cortical stimulation, fMRI, Wada test, Music ability
Appears in Collections:
NCIGT
Sponsors:
 U41 RR019703-03S1 (RR) funded by NCRR NIH HHS
K08-NS048063-02 (NS) funded by NINDS NIH HHS
T32-EB002177 (EB) funded by NIBIB NIH HHS
U41 RR019703 (RR) funded by NCRR NIH HHS
Generated Citation:
 Suarez R.O., Golby A.J., Whalen S., Sato S., Theodore W.H., Kufta C.V., Devinsky O., Balish M., Bromfield E.B. Contributions To Singing Ability By The Posterior Portion of The Superior Temporal Gyrus of The on-language-dominant Hemisphere: First Evidence From Subdural Cortical Stimulation, Wada Testing, and FMRI. Cortex. 2010 Mar;46(3):343-53. PMID: 19570530. PMCID: PMC2821975.
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Although the substrates that mediate singing abilities in the human brain are not well understood, invasive brain mapping techniques used for clinical decision making such as intracranial electro-cortical testing and Wada testing offer a rare opportunity to examine music-related function in a select group of subjects, affording exceptional spatial and temporal specificity. METHODS: We studied eight patients with medically refractory epilepsy undergoing indwelling subdural electrode seizure focus localization. All patients underwent Wada testing for language lateralization. Functional assessment of language and music tasks was done by electrode grid cortical stimulation. One patient was also tested non-invasively with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Functional organization of singing ability compared to language ability was determined based on four regions-of-interest (ROIs): left and right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and left and right posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG). RESULTS: In some subjects, electrical stimulation of dominant pSTG can interfere with speech and not singing, whereas stimulation of non-dominant pSTG area can interfere with singing and not speech. Stimulation of the dominant IFG tends to interfere with both musical and language expression, while non-dominant IFG stimulation was often observed to cause no interference with either task; and finally, that stimulation of areas adjacent to but not within non-dominant pSTG typically does not affect either ability. Functional fMRI mappings of one subject revealed similar music/language dissociation with respect to activation asymmetry within the ROIs. CONCLUSION: Despite inherent limitations with respect to strictly research objectives, invasive clinical techniques offer a rare opportunity to probe musical and language cognitive processes of the brain in a select group of patients.

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