Biology subjects

Weineck, K.

Publications and source records attributed to Weineck, K..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Reduced neural sensitivity to musical tempo despite enhanced neural tracking of musical features in older adults

A substantial body of prior research has focused on how aging affects the neural processing of speech, whereas less is known about how older adults encode naturalistic music. Here, we investigated whether the neural tracking of different features in naturalistic music differs between age groups. Younger and older adults (both sexes) listened to excerpts of naturalistic music with different tempi (1-4 Hz) while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. The results show an age-related enhancement of neural responses to sound onsets, suggesting a loss of inhibition in the aged auditory cortex that is thought to arise from peripheral decline. This hyperresponsiveness generalized to the neural tracking of multiple features (amplitude envelope, onsets, beat, and spectral flux) in naturalistic music. Crucially, older adults showed reduced sensitivity of early brain responses (0-130 ms) to tempo: Unlike younger adults, whose neural tracking decreased systematically with increasing tempo, older listeners maintained uniformly enhanced tracking across tempi. Spectral flux best predicted tempo- related changes in EEG activity, but this was reduced in older compared to younger adults. In sum, the current study demonstrates that cortical hyperactivity in aging enhances the tracking of different features during naturalistic music listening but impairs the sensitivity to musical tempo. This dissociation highlights the complex changes and functional consequences of auditory aging related to the processing of naturalistic music. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTHow aging affects the encoding of ecologically-valid, naturalistic music is not well understood, although music is an important part of older peoples lives. Here, we used electroencephalography and temporal response function approaches to investigate how younger and older adults encode different features of naturalistic music at different tempi (1 to 4 Hz). The results reveal a fundamental trade-off in the aging auditory system: enhanced neural tracking of acoustic features coexists with declined sensitivity to musical tempo. This dissociation between hyperactivity for feature encoding and impaired temporal sensitivity highlights complex changes in the aged auditory system that can have implications for music perception in older adulthood.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Neural entrainment is strongest to the spectral flux of slow music and depends on familiarity and beat salience

Neural activity in the auditory system synchronizes to sound rhythms, and brain-environment synchronization is thought to be fundamental to successful auditory perception. Sound rhythms are often operationalized in terms of the sounds amplitude envelope. We hypothesized that - especially for music - the envelope might not best capture the complex spectro-temporal fluctuations that give rise to beat perception and synchronized neural activity. This study investigated 1) neural synchronization to different musical features, 2) tempo-dependence of neural synchronization, and 3) dependence of synchronization on familiarity, enjoyment, and ease of beat perception. In this electroencephalography study, 37 human participants listened to tempo-modulated music (1-4 Hz). Independent of whether the analysis approach was based on temporal response functions (TRFs) or reliable components analysis (RCA), the spectral flux of music - as opposed to the amplitude envelope - evoked strongest neural synchronization. Moreover, music with slower beat rates, high familiarity, and easy-to-perceive beats elicited the strongest neural response. Our results demonstrate the importance of spectro-temporal fluctuations in music for driving neural synchronization, and highlight its sensitivity to musical tempo, familiarity, and beat salience.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Fronto-striatal oscillations predict vocal output in bats

The ability to vocalize is ubiquitous in vertebrates, but neural networks leading to vocalization production remain poorly understood. Here we performed simultaneous, large scale, neuronal recordings in the frontal cortex and dorsal striatum (caudate nucleus) during the production of echolocation and non-echolocation calls in bats. This approach allows to assess the general aspects underlying vocalization production in mammals and the unique evolutionary adaptations of bat echolocation. Our findings show that distinct intra-areal brain rhythms in the beta (12-30 Hz) and gamma (30-80 Hz) bands of the local field potential can be used to predict the bats vocal output and that phase locking between spikes and field potentials occurs prior vocalization production. Moreover, the fronto-striatal network is differentially coupled in the theta-band during the production of echolocation and non-echolocation calls. Overall, our results present evidence for fronto-striatal network oscillations in motor action prediction in mammals.

neuroscience↗