Musical expertise modulates functional connectivity of limbic regions during continuous music listening.

Recent neural studies have established 3 limbic regions, namely the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the accumbens (NAc), as the fundamental nodes of the neural circuit responsible for experiencing emotions. Here we investigate how musical expertise modulates this circuit during continuous listening. Eighteen nonmusicians and 21 musicians were measured with functional MRI (fMRI) they listened to three 8-min long musical pieces representing different musical styles (tango nuevo, classical, and progressive rock). Functional connectivity maps of seeds belonging to the , hippocampus, and NAc were obtained for each participant. Group-level t tests revealed that, , musicians exhibited enhanced connectivity with the supplementary motor area (SMA), and with and ventrolateral cerebral and cerebellar affective regions. On the contrary, nonmusicians greater connectivity with subcortical regions only. We found the amygdala network associated with perceiving negative valence in music to be more tightly coupled in than nonmusicians. Similarly, the hippocampal network previously related to tracking musical motifs during continuous music listening was more coupled in musicians. The lack group differences observed for right NAc connectivity reinforce the notion that the mesocorticolimbic network is not modulated by musical expertise, whereas left NAc connectivity suggest that musical expertise intensifies the rewarding aspect of music selectively in the left . In sum, during music listening musicians’ deep perceptual and motoric knowledge of increases the coupling between areas that process musical emotions with areas that process commands and pleasure.