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Major advances in music neuroscience have fueled a growing interest in music-based neurological rehabilitation among researchers and clinicians. Musical activities are excellently suited to be adapted for clinical practice because of their multisensory nature, their demands on cognitive, language, and motor functions, and music's ability to induce emotions and regulate mood. However, the overall quality of music-based rehabilitation research remains low to moderate for most populations and outcomes. In this consensus article, expert panelists who participated in the Neuroscience and Music VII conference in June 2021 address methodological challenges relevant to music-based rehabilitation research. The article aims to provide guidance on challenges related to treatment, outcomes, research designs, and implementation in music-based rehabilitation research. The article addresses how to define music-based rehabilitation, select appropriate control interventions and outcomes, incorporate technology, and consider individual differences, among other challenges. The article highlights the value of the framework for the development and evaluation of complex interventions for music-based rehabilitation research and the need for stronger methodological rigor to allow the widespread implementation of music-based rehabilitation into regular clinical practice. publishedVersion

Human beings continuously make use of learned associations to generate predictions about future occurrences in the environment. Such memory-related predictive processes provide a scaffold for learning in that mental rep-resentations of foreseeable events can be adjusted or strengthened based on a specific outcome. Learning the meaning of novel words through picture-word associations constitutes a prime example of associative learning because pictures preceding words can trigger word prediction through the pre-activation of the related mne-monic representations. In the present electroencephalography (EEG) study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to compare neural indices of word pre-activation between a word learning condition with maximal prediction likelihood and a non-learning control condition with low prediction. Results revealed that prediction -related N400 amplitudes in response to pictures decreased over time at central electrodes as a function of word learning, whereas late positive component (LPC) amplitudes increased. Notably, N400 but not LPC changes were also predictive of word learning performance, suggesting that the N400 component constitutes a sensitive marker of word pre-activation during associative word learning.

Humans seem to be inherently driven to engage in wordplay. An example is the creation of palindromes – sentences that read the same backward and forward. This activity can be framed as a curiosity-driven behaviour, in which individuals seek for information that serves no direct purpose and in the absence of external rewards. In this fMRI case study, an experienced palindrome creator was scanned while he generated palindromes with different levels of difficulty. Palindrome creation was alternated with resting periods and with a working memory task, both serving as control conditions. Relative to resting, palindrome creation recruited frontal domain-specific language networks and fronto-parietal domain-general networks. The comparison with the working memory task evidenced partial overlap with the multiple-demand cortex, which participates in solving a variety of cognitively challenging tasks. Intriguingly, greater difficulty during palindrome creation differentially activated the right frontopolar cortex (BA 10), a region that was also linked to palindrome resolution. The latter is consistent with exploratory behaviour – in this case, with seeking new but interdependent linguistic segments within a complex internal model (i.e., a palindromic structure)– and bears resemblance with brain substrates sustaining hard logical reasoning, altogether pointing to a commonplace for curiosity in discovering new and complex relations "This work was supported by the grant “Generación del Conocimiento” awarded to ARF (reference: PGC 2018-099859-B-I00), co-funded by Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (MCIU), which is part of the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) of Spain, and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). PLC was funded with a pre-doctoral grant (FPU "Ayudas para la Formación de Profesorado Universitario") (reference: FPU15/05554) of Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (MECD). We also acknowledge support from MINECO and “Agencia Estatal de Investigación” grants PGC 2018-098676-B-100 (AG), RTI 2018-098322-B-100 (AG) and AGAUR project 2017SGR1049 (AG)"

Music listening provides one of the most significant abstract rewards for humans because hearing music activates the dopaminergic mesolimbic system. Given the strong link between reward, dopamine, and memory, we aimed here to investigate the hypothesis that dopamine-dependent musical reward can drive memory improvements. Twenty-nine healthy participants of both sexes provided reward ratings of unfamiliar musical excerpts that had to be remembered following a consolidation period under three separate conditions: after the ingestion of a dopaminergic antagonist, a dopaminergic precursor, or a placebo. Linear mixed modeling of the intervention data showed that the effect of reward on memory-i.e., the greater the reward experienced while listening to the musical excerpts, the better the memory recollection performance-was modulated by both dopaminergic signaling and individual differences in reward processing. Greater pleasure was consistently associated with better memory outcomes in participants with high sensitivity to musical reward, but this effect was lost when dopaminergic signaling was disrupted in participants with average or low musical hedonia. Our work highlights the flexibility of the human dopaminergic system, which can enhance memory formation not only through explicit and/or primary reinforcers but also via abstract and aesthetic rewards such as music.

Alpha oscillatory activity is thought to contribute to the cueing of visual attention through the engagement of task-relevant occipital regions. In early blindness, occipital alpha oscillations are systematically reduced, suggesting that occipital alpha depends on visual experience. However, it is still unknown if alpha activity could serve attentional cueing in non-visual modalities in blind people, especially considering previous research that showed the recruitment of the occipital cortex for non-visual processing. To test this idea, we used electroencephalography to answer whether alpha oscillations reflected a differential recruitment of task-relevant regions between expected and unexpected conditions in two (texture and shape discrimination) haptic tasks. As expected, time frequency analyses showed that alpha suppression in parieto-occipital sites was significantly reduced in early blind individuals. The source reconstruction analysis revealed that group differences originated in the middle occipital cortex. In that region, expected trials evoked higher alpha desynchronization than unexpected trials in the EB group only. Our results support the role of alpha rhythms in the recruitment of occipital areas also in early blind participants, and for the first time we show that even if posterior alpha activity is reduced in blindness, it is however sensitive to task-dependent factors. Our findings therefore suggest that occipital alpha activity may be involved in tactile attention in blind individuals, maintaining the function proposed for visual attention in sighted population but switched to the tactile modality. Altogether, our results indicate that attention-dependent modulation of alpha oscillatory activity does not depend on visual experience.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTAre posterior alpha oscillations and their role in attention dependent on visual experience? Our results show that tactile attention can modulate posterior alpha activity in blind (but not sighted) individuals through the engagement of occipital regions, suggesting that in early blindness, alpha oscillations maintain their proposed role in visual attention but subserve tactile processing. Our findings bring a new understanding to the role that alpha oscillatory activity plays in blindness, contrasting with the view supporting that alpha activity is rather task unspecific.

OBJECTIVES We studied a sample of cognitively unimpaired individuals, with and without subjective cognitive decline (SCD), in order to investigate accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF) and to explore the relationships between objective and subjective cognitive performance and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) Alzheimer's disease (AD) biomarkers. METHODS Fifty-two individuals were included and SCD was quantified through the Subjective Cognitive Decline Questionnaire (SCD-Q), using its validated cutoff to classify participants as Low SCD-Q (n = 21) or High SCD-Q (n = 31). These groups were further subdivided according to the presence or absence of abnormal levels of CSF Aβ42 . Objective cognitive performance was assessed with the Ancient Farming Equipment Test (AFE-T), a new highly-demanding test that calls for acquisition and retention of novel object/name pairs and allows measuring ALF over a 6-month period. RESULTS The High SCD-Q group showed a significantly higher free forgetting rate at 3 months compared to the Low SCD-Q (F [1,44] = 4.72; p

Altres ajuts: Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER); Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI). Accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF) refers to a rapid loss of information over days or weeks despite normal acquisition/encoding. Notwithstanding its potential relevance as a presymptomatic marker of cognitive dysfunction, no study has addressed the relationship between ALF and Alzheimer's disease (AD) biomarkers. We examined ALF in APOE ɛ4 carriers versus noncarriers, and its relationships with AD cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers. We found ALF over three months in APOE ɛ4 carriers (F(1,19) = 5.60; P < 0.05; Cohen's d = 1.08), and this performance was associated with abnormal levels of the CSF Aβ/ptau ratio (r = −.614; P < 0.01). Our findings indicate that ALF is detectable in at-risk individuals, and that there is a relationship between ALF and the pathophysiological processes underlying AD.

People with aphasia (PWA) present with language deficits including word retrieval difficulties after brain damage. Language learning is an essential life-long human capacity that may support treatment-induced lan-guage recovery after brain insult. This prospect has motivated a growing interest in the study of language learning in PWA during the last few decades. Here, we critically review the current literature on language learning ability in aphasia. The existing studies in this area indicate that (i) language learning can remain functional in some PWA, (ii) inter-individual variability in learning performance is large in PWA, (iii) language processing, short-term memory and lesion site are associated with learning ability, (iv) preliminary evidence suggests a relationship between learning ability and treatment outcomes in this population. Based on the reviewed evidence, we propose a potential account for the interplay between language and memory/learning systems to explain spared/impaired language learning and its relationship to language therapy in PWA. Finally, we indicate potential avenues for future research that may promote more cross-talk between cognitive neuro-science and aphasia rehabilitation.

Alpha and beta power decreases have been associated with prediction in a variety of cognitive domains. Recent studies in sentence comprehension have also reported alpha and/or beta power decreases preceding contextually predictable words, albeit with remarkable spatiotemporal variability across reports. To contribute to the understanding of the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, and the sources of variability, the present study explored to what extent these prediction-related alpha and beta power decreases might be common across different modalities of comprehension. To address this, we re-analysed the data of two EEG experiments that employed the same materials in written and in spoken comprehension. Sentence contexts were weakly or strongly constraining about a sentence-final word, which was presented after a 1 s delay, either matching or mismatching the expectation. In written comprehension, alpha power (8–12 Hz) decreased before final words appearing in strongly (relative to weakly) constraining contexts, in line with previous reports. Furthermore, a similar oscillatory phenomenon was evidenced in spoken comprehension, although with relevant spatiotemporal differences. Altogether, the findings agree with the involvement of both modality-specific and general-domain mechanisms in the elicitation of prediction-related alpha power decreases in sentence comprehension. Specifically, we propose that this phenomenon might partly reflect richer and more precise information representation when linguistic contexts afford prediction., pre-doctoral grant (FPU "Ayudas para la Formacion de Profesorado Universitario") of the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport FPU15/05554

Music-based interventions have emerged as a promising tool in stroke motor rehabilitation as they integrate most of the principles of motor training and multimodal stimulation. This paper aims to review the use of music in the rehabilitation of upper extremity motor function after stroke. First, we review the evidence supporting current music-based interventions including Music-supported Therapy, Music glove, group music therapy, Rhythm- and music-based intervention, and Musical sonification. Next, we describe the mechanisms that may be responsible for the effectiveness of these interventions, focusing on motor learning aspects, how multimodal stimulation may boost motor performance, and emotional and motivational aspects related to music. Then, we discuss methodological concerns in music therapy research related to modifications of therapy protocols, evaluation of patients and study designs. Finally, we highlight clinical considerations for the implementation of music-based interventions in clinical settings.

Background Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are characterized by impoverished self-regulatory mechanisms and self-image distortions. An intriguing question is to what extent BPD individuals develop accurate perceptions of their self-regulatory everyday functioning. Here, we tackle this issue evaluating their metacognitive abilities. Methods One hundred and forty-four participants were enrolled in the study and divided into a BPD group and a healthy Control group, with each consisting of 36 participants paired with their corresponding close relatives. We compared self-report evaluations of the participants’ self-regulatory processes in daily-life activities and personality traits with external perceptions by close relatives, as a measure of metacognition. The ratings from participants and their informants were compared using an ANCOVA profile analysis. Results Self-report results showed poor self-regulation ability in the daily environment as well as extreme scores in personality-traits in the BPD group in comparison with healthy participants. Further, in the BPD group we found a clear discrepancy between the information provided by patients and their close relatives regarding the processes involved in self-regulation of daily-life activities (but not for personality traits). This discrepancy was related to their clinical status and was not observed in the healthy control group. Limitations Analysis was based on self-report data, focusing on the difference with informants reports only. Conclusions about the direction of a possible bias on participants’ self-perception are limited. Conclusions Metacognitive deficits might play a key mediating role between the altered cognitive processes responsible for self-regulation and cognitive control and the daily-life consequences in BPD.

Purpose Our aim was to study the microstructural architecture of the contralateral hippocampus to the affected side in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis (TLE-HS) and its relation with surgical outcome. Method We included 33 consecutive patients evaluated in our epilepsy surgery program during a five-year period. They underwent a presurgical MRI with volumetric T1 and diffusion weighted sequences. 22 patients with TLE-HS (13 women, 12 right TLE-HS) were finally selected. Median follow-up after surgery was 6.25 years (4.5–8.83 years). We segmented the hippocampal subfields of the contralateral hippocampus using FreeSurfer and calculated the fractional anisotropy (FA) and the mean diffusivity (MD) of each subfield. We also scanned 18 healthy age-matched controls. Results After surgery, 50 % of the patients (n = 11) remained seizure-free (SF) following surgery. Comparing non-SF to SF patients, the MD showed increased values of the CA1 (p = 0.035), the molecular layer (p = 0.010) and the dentate gyrus (p = 0.041) in the healthy hippocampus. Using a cut-off point for a survival analysis, we found that patients with lower values of MD of the molecular layer and the CA1 remained SF during long-term post-operative follow-up (p Conclusions The contralateral hippocampal internal microstructure may have be implicated in post-surgery seizure freedom in patients with TLE-HS.

During the past decade, research in cognitive neuroscience has tried to understand how the organized acoustic information we call music is decoded in the brain as pleasant and rewarding stimulus. In this chapter, the authors retrace part of this intriguing journey: from the first positron emission tomography study revealing the association between the mesolimbic system and musical pleasure to the recent pharmacological interventions showing that dopamine causally mediates the subjectively rewarding experience elicited by music. The dopamine-dependent hedonic and motivational responses to music may depend on the modulations of several neural mechanisms related not only to emotion, but also to attention and memory. Musical reward arises therefore as a complex set of processes which constitute a special access key to the study of human cognition.

In the context of neurorehabilitation, sound is being increasingly applied for facilitating sensorimotor learning. In this study, we aimed to test the potential value of auditory stimulation for improving gait in chronic stroke patients by inducing alterations of the frequency spectra of walking sounds via a sound system that selectively amplifies and equalizes the signal in order to produce distorted auditory feedback. Twenty‐two patients with lower extremity paresis were exposed to real‐time alterations of their footstep sounds while walking. Changes in body perception, emotion, and gait were quantified. Our results suggest that by altering footsteps sounds, several gait parameters can be modified in terms of left–right foot asymmetry. We observed that augmenting low‐frequency bands or amplifying the natural walking sounds led to a reduction in the asymmetry index of stance and stride times, whereas it inverted the asymmetry pattern in heel–ground exerted force. By contrast, augmenting high‐frequency bands led to opposite results. These gait changes might be related to updating of internal forward models, signaling the need for adjustment of the motor system to reduce the perceived discrepancies between predicted–actual sensory feedbacks. Our findings may have the potential to enhance gait awareness in stroke patients and other clinical conditions, supporting gait rehabilitation. This study was supported by the Spanish Government with an MINECO grant (PSI2015‐69178‐P) awarded to A.R.F., two MINECO grants (RYC‐2014–15421 and PSI2016‐79004‐R, AEI/FEDER, UE) awarded to A.T.‐J., and a predoctoral FPI grant (BES‐2016‐078889) awarded to A.G.‐A.

Background Surgery may render temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients seizure-free. However, TLE is a heterogenous entity and surgical prognosis varies between patients. Network-based biomarkers have been shown to be altered in TLE patients and hold promise for classifying TLE subtypes and improving pre-surgical prognosis. The aim of the present study is to investigate a network-based biomarker, the weighted degree of connectivity (wDC), on an individual level, and its relation to TLE subtypes and surgical prognosis. Methods Thirty unilateral TLE patients undergoing the same surgical procedure (anterior temporal resection) and 18 healthy controls were included. All patients were followed-up in the same center for a mean time of 6.85 years and classified as seizure-free (SF) and non seizure-free (non-SF). Using pre-surgical resting state functional MRI, whole brain wDC values for patients and controls were calculated. Then, we divided both temporal lobes in three Regions-of-interest (ROIs) -mesial, pole and lateral- as these areas are known to behave differently in seizure onset and propagation, delimiting different TLE profiles. The wDC values for the defined ROIs of each individual patient were compared with the healthy group. Results After surgery, 14 TLE patients remained SF. As a group, patients had higher wDC than controls in both the temporal pole (p p p p Conclusions This study provides a network-based presurgical biomarker that could pave the way towards personalized prediction. In patients with TLE undergoing anterior temporal resections, having an increased wDC at rest could be a signature of the epileptogenic area, and could help identifying those patients who would benefit most from surgery.

International audience; Humans continuously learn new information. Here, we examined the temporal brain dynamics of explicit verbal associative learning between unfamiliar items. In the first experiment, 25 adults learned object-pseudoword associations during a 5-day training program allowing us to track the N400 dynamics across learning blocks within and across days. Successful learning was accompanied by an initial frontal N400 that decreased in amplitude across blocks during the first day and shifted to parietal sites during the last training day. In Experiment 2, we replicated our findings with 38 new participants randomly assigned to a consistent learning or an inconsistent learning group. The N400 amplitude modulations that we found, both within and between learning sessions, are taken to reflect the emergence of novel lexical traces even when learning concerns items for which no semantic information is provided. The shift in N400 topography suggests that different N400 neural generators may contribute to specific word learning steps through a balance between domain-general and language-specific mechanisms.

Conté: Suplementary data Language capacities in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) range from normal scores on standardized language tests to absence of functional language in a substantial minority of 30% of individuals with ASD. Due to practical difculties of scanning at this severe end of the spectrum, insights from MRI are scarce. Here we used manual deterministic tractography to investigate, for the frst time, the integrity of the core white matter tracts defning the language connectivity network in non-verbal ASD (nvASD): the three segments of the arcuate (AF), the inferior fronto-occipital (IFOF), the inferior longitudinal (ILF) and the uncinate (UF) fasciculi, and the frontal aslant tract (FAT). A multiple case series of nine individuals with nvASD were compared to matched individuals with verbal ASD (vASD) and typical development (TD). Bonferroni-corrected repeated measure ANOVAs were performed separately for each tract—Hemisphere (2:Left/Right) × Group (3:TD/vASD/ nvASD). Main results revealed (i) a main efect of group consisting in a reduction in fractional anisotropy (FA) in the IFOF in nvASD relative to TD; (ii) a main efect of group revealing lower values of radial difusivity (RD) in the long segment of the AF in nvASD compared to vASD group; and (iii) a reduced volume in the left hemisphere of the UF when compared to the right, in the vASD group only. These results do not replicate volumetric diferences of the dorsal language route previously observed in nvASD, and instead point to a disruption of the ventral language pathway, in line with semantic defcits observed behaviourally in this group. Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUECSIC agreement with Springer Nature. Supported by an ‘advanced research group’ grant to the Grammar and Cognition Lab (2017 SGR 1265, W.H.), and grants FFI2013-40526P and PID2019-110120RBI00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (MCIU) and the Agencia Estatal de Brain Structure and Function 1 3 Investigación (AEI) (W.H.), and two predoctoral research grants: one from Generalitat de Catalunya (AGAUR) & European Social Found (2018FI_B_00860, D.S), the other from Government of Andorra: Guillem Olivé Cadena acknowledges the Government of Andorra from a predoctoral grant, (ATC0XX-AND-2020/2021, G.O.). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Background and purpose: This study was undertaken to determine and compare lesion patterns and structural dysconnectivity underlying poststroke aprosodia and amusia, using a data-driven multimodal neuroimaging approach. Methods: Thirty-nine patients with right or left hemisphere stroke were enrolled in a cohort study and tested for linguistic and affective prosody perception and musical pitch and rhythm perception at subacute and 3-month poststroke stages. Participants listened to words spoken with different prosodic stress that changed their meaning, and to words spoken with six different emotions, and chose which meaning or emotion was expressed. In the music tasks, participants judged pairs of short melodies as the same or different in terms of pitch or rhythm. Structural magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired at both stages, and machine learning-based lesion-symptom mapping and deterministic tractography were used to identify lesion patterns and damaged white matter pathways giving rise to aprosodia and amusia. Results: Both aprosodia and amusia were behaviorally strongly correlated and associated with similar lesion patterns in right frontoinsular and striatal areas. In multiple regression models, reduced fractional anisotropy and lower tract volume of the right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus were the strongest predictors for both disorders, over time. Conclusions: These results highlight a common origin of aprosodia and amusia, both arising from damage and disconnection of the right ventral auditory stream integrating rhythmic-melodic acoustic information in prosody and music. Comorbidity of these disabilities may worsen the prognosis and affect rehabilitation success.

According to prediction-based accounts of language comprehension, incoming contextual information is constantly used to guide the pre-activation of the most probable continuations to the unfolding sentences. However, there is still scarce evidence of the build-up of these predictions during sentence comprehension. Using event-related brain potentials, we investigated sustained processes associated to semantic prediction during online sentence comprehension. To address this, participants read sentences with varying levels of contextual constraint one word at a time. A 1000 ms interval preceded the final word, which could be congruent or incongruent. A slow sustained negativity developed gradually over the course of sentences, showing differences across conditions, with increasingly larger amplitudes for high than low levels of constraint. The effect was maximal in the interval preceding the closing word. This interval elicited a left-dominant slow negative potential with a graded amplitude modulation to contextual constraint, replicating previous results in speech comprehension. We argue that these slow potentials index the engagement of cognitive operations associated to semantic prediction. In addition, we replicated the finding of an earlier onset of the N400 effect (incongruent minus congruent) for high relative to low contextual constraint, suggesting facilitated processing for contextually-supported and highly expected words. Altogether, these results are consistent with prediction-based models of language comprehension and they also strengthen the value of investigating slow components as potential indices of mechanisms linked to language prediction.

Understanding how the brain translates a structured sequence of sounds, such as music, into a pleasant and rewarding experience is a fascinating question which may be crucial to better understand the processing of abstract rewards in humans. Previous neuroimaging findings point to a challenging role of the dopaminergic system in music-evoked pleasure. However, there is a lack of direct evidence showing that dopamine function is causally related to the pleasure we experience from music. We addressed this problem through a double blind within-subject pharmacological design in which we directly manipulated dopaminergic synaptic availability while healthy participants (n = 27) were engaged in music listening. We orally administrated to each participant a dopamine precursor (levodopa), a dopamine antagonist (risperidone), and a placebo (lactose) in three different sessions. We demonstrate that levodopa and risperidone led to opposite effects in measures of musical pleasure and motivation: while the dopamine precursor levodopa, compared with placebo, increased the hedonic experience and music-related motivational responses, risperidone led to a reduction of both. This study shows a causal role of dopamine in musical pleasure and indicates that dopaminergic transmission might play different or additive roles than the ones postulated in affective processing so far, particularly in abstract cognitive activities.

Neural oscillations constitute an intrinsic property of functional brain organization that facilitates the tracking of linguistic units at multiple time scales through brain-to-stimulus alignment. This ubiquitous neural principle has been shown to facilitate speech segmentation and word learning based on statistical regularities. However, there is no common agreement yet on whether speech segmentation is mediated by a transition of neural synchronization from syllable to word rate, or whether the two time scales are concurrently tracked. Furthermore, it is currently unknown whether syllable transition probability contributes to speech segmentation when lexical stress cues can be directly used to extract word forms. Using inter-trial coherence (ITC) analyses in combinations with Event-Related Potentials (ERPs), we showed that speech segmentation based on both statistical regularities and lexical stress cues was accompanied by concurrent neural synchronization to syllables and words. In particular, ITC at the word rate was generally higher in structured compared to random sequences, and this effect was particularly pronounced in the flat condition. Furthermore, ITC at the syllable rate dynamically increased across the blocks of the flat condition, whereas a similar modulation was not observed in the stressed condition. Notably, in the flat condition ITC at both time scales correlated with each other, and changes in neural synchronization were accompanied by a rapid reconfiguration of the P200 and N400 components with a close relationship between ITC and ERPs. These results highlight distinct computational principles governing neural synchronization to pertinent linguistic units while segmenting speech under different listening conditions.

OBJECTIVE: Of current interest in aphasia research is the relevance of what we can learn from studying word learning ability in aphasia. In a preliminary study, we addressed two issues related to the novel word learning ability of individuals with aphasia. First, as word learning engages large-scale cognitive-linguistic systems (language skills, verbal short-term memory (STM), other memory and executive functions), we probed whether novel word learning practice in three people with aphasia could stimulate these language-related systems. Second, as lesion correlates affecting word learning in aphasia remain unclear, we examined whether the structural integrity of the left arcuate fasciculus (AF) in the same three individuals is related to outcomes of novel word learning practice. METHOD: To stimulate word learning systems, our three participants practiced for 4 weeks with an explicit novel word – novel referent word learning task, adopted from the Ancient Farming Equipment learning paradigm (Laine & Salmelin, 2010). The participants’ progress on receptive and expressive novel word learning was followed up, and their language and verbal STM abilities as well as single-session novel word learning (Learning to Name Aliens by Gupta, Martin, Abbs, Schwartz & Lipinski, 2006) were tested before and after the practice period. To address the second question, we analyzed the participants’ structural MRI scans with respect to the integrity of the left AF and its overlap with the lesion areas. RESULTS: All participants showed some receptive word learning in the trained task, as well as improvements in verbal STM span at posttest. Two of the three participants also showed improved performance on some of the language outcome measures. One participant with partially spared left AF, especially temporo-parietal connections, exhibited better word learning performance than the other two who had larger damage and disconnection of the AF. CONCLUSIONS: While the present results are preliminary, they open the possibility that novel word learning practice in aphasia may stimulate remaining word learning mechanisms in aphasia, and thereby influence language and verbal STM abilities. These results also suggest that preservation of novel word learning ability in aphasia in part depends on the integrity of the left arcuate track.

The learning of new words is a challenge that accompanies human beings throughout the entire life span. Although the main electrophysiological markers of word learning have already been described, little is known about the performance-dependent neural machinery underlying this exceptional human faculty. Furthermore, it is currently unknown how word learning abilities are related to verbal memory capacity, auditory attention functions, phonetic discrimination skills, and musicality. Accordingly, we used EEG and examined 40 individuals, who were assigned to two groups (low [LPs] and high performers [HPs]) based on a median split of word learning performance, while they completed a phonetic-based word learning task. Furthermore, we collected behavioral data during an attentive listening and a phonetic discrimination task with the same stimuli to address relationships between auditory attention and phonetic discrimination skills, word learning performance, and musicality. The phonetic-based word learning task, which also included a nonlearning control condition, was sensitive enough to segregate learning-specific and unspecific N200/N400 manifestations along the anterior–posterior topographical axis. Notably, HPs exhibited enhanced verbal memory capacity and we also revealed a performance-dependent spatial N400 pattern, with maximal amplitudes at posterior electrodes in HPs and central maxima in LPs. Furthermore, phonetic-based word learning performance correlated with verbal memory capacity and phonetic discrimination skills, whereas the latter was related to musicality. This experimental approach clearly highlights the multifaceted dimensions of phonetic-based word learning and is helpful to disentangle learning-specific and unspecific ERPs.

Listening to vocal music has been recently shown to improve language recovery in stroke survivors. The neuroplasticity mechanisms supporting this effect are, however, still unknown. Using data from a three-arm single-blind randomized controlled trial including acute stroke patients (N=38) and a 3-month follow-up, we set out to compare the neuroplasticity effects of daily listening to self-selected vocal music, instrumental music, and audiobooks on both brain activity and structural connectivity of the language network. Using deterministic tractography we show that the 3-month intervention induced an enhancement of the microstructural properties of the left frontal aslant tract (FAT) for the vocal music group as compared to the audiobook group. Importantly, this increase in the strength of the structural connectivity of the left FAT correlated with improved language skills. Analyses of stimulus-specific activation changes showed that the vocal music group exhibited increased activations in the frontal termination points of the left FAT during vocal music listening as compared to the audiobook group from acute to 3-month post-stroke stage. The increased activity correlated with the structural neuroplasticity changes in the left FAT. These results suggest that the beneficial effects of vocal music listening on post-stroke language recovery are underpinned by structural neuroplasticity changes within the language network and extend our understanding of music-based interventions in stroke rehabilitation. Listening to vocal music has been recently shown to improve language recovery in stroke survivors. The neuroplasticity mechanisms supporting this effect are, however, still unknown. Using data from a three-arm, single-blind, randomized controlled trial including acute stroke patients (N = 38) and a 3 month follow-up, we set out to compare the neuroplasticity effects of daily listening to self-selected vocal music, instrumental music, and audiobooks on both brain activity and structural connectivity of the language network. Using deterministic tractography, we show that the 3 month intervention induced an enhancement of the microstructural properties of the left frontal aslant tract (FAT) for the vocal music group compared with the audiobook group. Importantly, this increase in the strength of the structural connectivity of the left FAT correlated with improved language skills. Analyses of stimulus-specific activation changes showed that the vocal music group exhibited increased activations in the frontal termination points of the left FAT during vocal music listening compared with the audiobook group from acute to 3 month poststroke stage. The increased activity correlated with the structural neuroplasticity changes in the left FAT. These results suggest that the beneficial effects of vocal music listening on poststroke language recovery are underpinned by structural neuroplasticity changes within the language network and extend our understanding of music-based interventions in stroke rehabilitation.

After completing formal stroke rehabilitation programs, most patients do not achieve full upper limb motor function recovery. Music-supported Therapy (MST) can improve motor functionality post stroke through musical training. We designed a home-based enriched Music-supported Therapy (eMST) program to provide patients with chronic stroke the opportunity of continuing rehabilitation by themselves. We developed an app to conduct the eMST sessions at home with a MIDI-piano and percussion instruments. Here, we tested the feasibility of the eMST intervention using the novel app.

Highlights • Sixty 9-year-old children performed an audio-visual statistical learning task. • Children showed successful recognition of words and word-to-picture associations. • Enhanced neural tracking at word and syllable rate for consistent audio-visual streams. • Enhanced long-distance scalp-based phase synchronization suggested multi-sensory integration. • Multi-sensory cues may increase attention to enhance learning in children., When learning a new language, one must segment words from continuous speech and associate them with meanings. These complex processes can be boosted by attentional mechanisms triggered by multi-sensory information. Previous electrophysiological studies suggest that brain oscillations are sensitive to different hierarchical complexity levels of the input, making them a plausible neural substrate for speech parsing. Here, we investigated the functional role of brain oscillations during concurrent speech segmentation and meaning acquisition in sixty 9-year-old children. We collected EEG data during an audio-visual statistical learning task during which children were exposed to a learning condition with consistent word-picture associations and a random condition with inconsistent word-picture associations before being tested on their ability to recall words and word-picture associations. We capitalized on the brain dynamics to align neural activity to the same rate as an external rhythmic stimulus to explore modulations of neural synchronization and phase synchronization between electrodes during multi-sensory word learning. Results showed enhanced power at both word- and syllabic-rate and increased EEG phase synchronization between frontal and occipital regions in the learning compared to the random condition. These findings suggest that multi-sensory cueing and attentional mechanisms play an essential role in children's successful word learning.

[EN]Abstract Background: Residual motor deficits of the upper limb in patients with chronic stroke are common and have a negative impact on autonomy, participation and quality of life. Music-Supported Therapy (MST) is an effective intervention to enhance motor and cognitive function, emotional well-being and quality of life in chronic stroke patients. We have adapted the original MST training protocol to a home-based intervention, which incorporates increased training intensity and variability, group sessions, and optimisation of learning to promote autonomy and motivation. Methods: A randomised controlled trial will be conducted to test the effectiveness of this enriched MST (eMST) protocol in improving motor functions, cognition, emotional well-being and quality of life of chronic stroke patients when compared to a program of home-based exercises utilizing the Graded Repetitive Arm Supplementary Program (GRASP). Sixty stroke patients will be recruited and randomly allocated to an eMST group (n = 30) or a control GRASP intervention group (n = 30). Patients will be evaluated before and after a 10-week intervention, as well as at 3-month follow-up. The primary outcome of the study is the functionality of the paretic upper limb measured with the Action Research Arm Test. Secondary outcomes include other motor and cognitive functions, emotional well-being and quality of life measures as well as self-regulation and self-efficacy outcomes. Discussion: We hypothesize that patients treated with eMST will show larger improvements in their motor and cognitive functions, emotional well-being and quality of life than patients treated with a home-based GRASP intervention. Trial registration: The trial has been registered at ClinicalTrials.gov and identified as NCT04507542 on 8 August 2020, This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (ref. PGC2018-099859-B-I00) to A.R.F, by 2017-SGR-172 from Generalitat de Catalunya to J.L.A. Study resulting from the 201729.30 project, funded by La Marató de TV3. We thank CERCA Programme / Generalitat de Catalunya for institutional support.

This study was funded by grants from the Fundació la Marató de TV3 2014/U/477 and 20142910, and by financial support from the Center for Biomedical Research and Neurodegenerative Resources (CIBERNED). PLC was funded with a pre-doctoral grant FPU15/05554 (FPU "Ayudas para la Formación de Profesorado Universitario") of the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. JP was funded by PERIS (expedient number: SLT008/18/00088) of Generalitat de Catalunya. JK and HB-K were funded by FIS PI18/01717. HB -K was funded by Río Hortega CM17/00209 of Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) (Spain). JM was funded by Río Hortega CM15/00071 of Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) (Spain). None of these funding sources had any involvement in the conduct of the research or the preparation of the article., Cognitive deficits are common in Parkinson’s disease (PD), with some PD patients meeting criteria for mild cognitive impairment (MCI). An unaddressed question is whether linguistic prediction is preserved in PD. This ability is nowadays deemed crucial in achieving fast and efficient comprehension, and it may be negatively impacted by cognitive deterioration. To fill this gap of knowledge, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to evaluate mechanisms of linguistic prediction in a sample of PD patients (on dopamine compensation) with and without MCI. To this end, participants read sentence contexts that were predictive or not about a sentence-final word. The final word appeared after 1 second, matching or mismatching the prediction. The introduction of the interval allowed to capture neural responses both before and after sentence-final words, reflecting semantic anticipation and processing. PD patients with normal cognition (N = 58) showed ERP responses comparable to those of matched controls. Specifically, in predictive contexts, a slow negative potential developed prior to sentence-final words, reflecting semantic anticipation. Later, expected words elicited reduced N400 responses (compared to unexpected words), indicating facilitated semantic processing. Besides, PD patients with MCI (N = 20) showed a prolongation of the N400 congruency effect (compared to matched PD patients without MCI), indicating that further cognitive decline impacts semantic processing. Finally, lower verbal fluency scores correlated with prolonged N400 congruency effects and with reduced pre-word differences in all PD patients (N = 78). This relevantly points to a role of deficits in temporal-dependent mechanisms in PD, besides prototypical frontal dysfunction, in altered semantic anticipation and semantic processing during sentence comprehension., Fundació la Marató de TV3 2014/U/477 and 20142910, Center for Biomedical Research and Neurodegenerative Resources (CIBERNED), FPU15/05554 (FPU "Ayudas para la Formación de Profesorado Universitario") of the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, PERIS (expedient number: SLT008/18/00088) of Generalitat de Catalunya, Río Hortega CM17/00209 of Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) (Spain), FIS PI18/01717. HB -K, Río Hortega CM15/00071 of Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) (Spain)