Objective: 

The objective of this study was to determine whether exposure to long-known music would evoke more extensive activation of brain regions minimally affected by Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology and outside traditional memory networks using a functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm involving listening to long-known and recently-learned music in older adults with cognitive impairment to provide insight into mechanisms of long-term musical memory preservation in cognitively impaired older persons.

Methods: 

Seventeen subjects with a diagnosis of mild AD or mild cognitive impairment were recruited for this study. Subjects were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging while they performed a music listening task, which included short clips of personally selected music from the patient’s past and newly-composed music heard for the first time 60 minutes before scanning. From this task, we obtained group-level maps comparing brain areas associated with long-known and recently-heard music in all subjects.

Results: 

Exposure to long-known music preferentially activated brain regions including the medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus, anterior insula, basal ganglia, hippocampus, amygdala, and cerebellum relative to recently-heard music. These areas are involved in autobiographical memory and associated emotional responses. In addition, they are minimally affected by early stage AD pathology, thus providing a neural basis for long-known musical memory survival.

Conclusions: 

Long-known music activates a bilateral network of prefrontal, emotional, motor, auditory, and subcortical regions (cerebellum, putamen, limbic structures). This extensive activation, relative to recently-heard music, may offer structural and functional clues as to why long-term musical memory appears to be relatively preserved among cognitively impaired older persons.

中文翻译：

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认知障碍老年人的长期音乐记忆的神经基础。

目的： 

这项研究的目的是通过使用功能性磁共振成像范例（包括聆听已知音乐）来确定是否可以将接触到已知音乐的音乐诱发更广泛的大脑区域激活，从而使受阿尔茨海默病（AD）病理和传统记忆网络影响最小的大脑区域以及最近在认知障碍老年人中学习的音乐，以帮助他们深入了解认知障碍老年人的长期音乐记忆保存机制。

方法： 

本研究招募了十七名诊断为轻度AD或轻度认知障碍的受试者。在执行音乐收听任务的同时，使用功能磁共振成像对受试者进行扫描，其中包括从患者的过去中亲自挑选的音乐片段以及扫描前60分钟首次听到的新作曲。通过此任务，我们获得了组级别的地图，该地图比较了所有受试者中与已知音乐和最近听到的音乐相关的大脑区域。

结果： 

相对于最近听到的音乐，接触早已广为人知的音乐会优先激活大脑区域，包括内侧前额叶皮层，前神经突，前岛岛，基底神经节，海马，杏仁核和小脑。这些领域涉及自传体记忆和相关的情绪反应。此外，它们受早期AD病理的影响极小，因此为长期已知的音乐记忆生存提供了神经基础。

结论： 

众所周知的音乐可以激活前额，情感，运动，听觉和皮层下区域（小脑，壳状核，边缘结构）的双边网络。相对于最近听到的音乐，这种广泛的激活可能提供有关为什么长期的音乐记忆似乎在认知障碍的老年人中相对保留的结构和功能线索。