Shpenkov O. Brain entrainment to sound beats in professional musicians and nonmusicians

Brain entrainment is the ability of sensory cortex rhythmic activity to synchronize with external rhythmic stimuli. This feature of the brain cortex is widely used in the diagnosis of neurologic disorder and epilepsy. Brain entrainment is a multimodal characteristic, inherent to all sensory systems. People always face with such acoustic rhythmic stimuli like speech and music. Process of perception acoustic rhythmic stimuli could go along with sensorimotor synchronization. This is a process by which rhythmic activity of the motor cortex aligns to the phase of rhythmic activity of the auditory cortex (auditory cortex’s rhythmic activity). Thus, when we hear a stimulus in 120 bpm tempo (2 Hz) auditory cortex synchronizes to stimuli frequency, and activity in the motor cortex synchronizes to auditory cortex rhythmic activity. That’s why people unconsciously align their gestures to speech tempo or move to the beat while listening to music. Brain entrainment also plays a significant role in speech perception. Moreover, there is a link between speech disorders in children and the inability of the sensory cortex to entrain rhythmic stimuli. Noteworthy, that musicians have a better ability to entrain to acoustic rhythmic stimuli and better skills in learning a new language. It is also known that rhythms at low-frequency tone are entrained better. That’s why low-frequency instruments (drums, percussions, bass guitar, contrabass) form rhythmic patterns in music regardless of genre or culture. Considering the abovementioned research of brain entrainment mechanisms has significant potential in the context of musical practice impact on brain development as well as in the context of potential development of diagnosis and speech correction methods. That is why the proposed dissertation was dedicated to the study of professional musical practice's impact on brain entrainment mechanisms.