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Congenital amusia is characterized by lifelong impairments in music perception and processing. It is unclear whether pitch detection deficits impact amusic individuals' perception of musical emotion. In the current work, 19 amusics and 21 healthy controls were subjected to electroencephalography (EEG) while being exposed to music excerpts and emotional faces. We assessed each individual's ability to discriminate positive- and negative-valenced emotional faces and analyzed electrophysiological indices, in the form of event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded at 32 sites, following exposure to emotionally positive or negative music excerpts. We observed smaller N2 amplitudes in response to facial expressions in the amusia group than in the control group, suggesting that amusics were less affected by the musical stimuli. The late-positive component (LPC) in amusics was similar to that in controls. Our results suggest that the neurocognitive deficit characteristic of congenital amusia is fundamentally an impairment in musical information processing rather than an impairment in emotional processing.

Sensitivity to music reward varies across individuals. The Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire (BMRQ) is an effective tool in the assessment of sensitivity to music reward. The current study investigated the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the BMRQ, including its internal consistency, factor structure, criterion-related validity, and measurement invariance across gender. In addition, the relationship between personality traits and sensitivity to music reward was explored. A total of 1,120 Chinese undergraduate students completed a pen-and-paper version of the BMRQ, either in individual sessions or in class groups. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated a good fit for the revised model of the BMRQ. In addition, good internal consistency reliability of the overall scale and criterion-related validity with the BIS/BAS scale were also supported in this study. Evidence of configural, metric, and scalar invariance supported its measurement invariance across gender. On this basis, women in our sample reported themselves more sensitive than men to music reward. Results also showed that the personality traits Openness to Experience and Agreeableness were the strongest contributors to music reward sensitivity, while Extraversion did not make a significant contribution. These findings may provide a reference point for therapists wishing to predict the efficacy of music therapy for individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To identify the optimal factor structure of the behavioral inhibition system/behavioral activation system (BIS/BAS) scales and to examine measurement invariance (MI) of the scales across gender among a sample of Chinese undergraduate students. Methods: Convenience sampling was employed to recruit 1,085 subjects. Participants completed the Chinese version of the BIS/BAS scales. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of competing models was conducted to determine the optimal factor model, followed by a test of MI across gender based on the optimal model. Results: A single-group CFA indicated that the modified four-factor structure fits best in the total sample. Multiple-group CFAs demonstrated that configural invariance, weak invariance, strong invariance, and strict invariance models of the four-factor structure of the BIS/BAS scales were all acceptable. Conclusion: The four-factor structure of the Chinese version of the BIS/BAS scales possesses MI across gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interhemispheric connectivity of the two cerebral hemispheres is crucial for a broad repertoire of cognitive functions including music and language. Congenital amusia has been reported as a neurodevelopment disorder characterized by impaired music perception and production. However, little is known about the characteristics of the interhemispheric functional connectivity (FC) in amusia. In the present study, we used a newly developed voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) method to investigate the interhemispheric FC of the whole brain in amusia at resting-state. Thirty amusics and 29 matched participants underwent a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning. An automated VMHC approach was used to analyze the fMRI data. Compared to the control group, amusics showed increased VMHC within the posterior part of the default mode network (DMN) mainly in the posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). Correlation analyses revealed negative correlations between the VMHC value in pSTG/PCC and the music perception ability among amusics. Further ROC analyses showed that the VMHC value of pSTG/PCC showed a good sensibility/specificity to differentiate the amusics from the controls. These findings provide a new perspective for understanding the neural basis of congenital amusia and imply the immature state of DMN may be a credible neural marker of amusia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Congenital amusia (CA) is a rare disorder characterized by deficits in pitch perception, and many structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have been conducted to better understand its neural bases. However, a structural magnetic resonance imaging analysis using a surface-based morphology method to identify regions with cortical features abnormalities at the vertex-based level has not yet been performed. Methods: Fifteen participants with CA and 13 healthy controls underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging. A surface-based morphology method was used to identify anatomical abnormalities. Then, the surface parameters' mean value of the identified clusters with statistically significant between-group differences were extracted and compared. Finally, Pearson's correlation analysis was used to assess the correlation between the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA) scores and surface parameters. Results: The CA group had significantly lower MBEA scores than the healthy controls ( p = 0.000). The CA group exhibited a significant higher fractal dimension in the right caudal middle frontal gyrus and a lower sulcal depth in the right pars triangularis gyrus ( p < 0.05; false discovery rate-corrected at the cluster level) compared to healthy controls. There were negative correlations between the mean fractal dimension values in the right caudal middle frontal gyrus and MBEA score, including the mean MBEA score ( r = -0.5398, p = 0.0030), scale score ( r = -0.5712, p = 0.0015), contour score ( r = -0.4662, p = 0.0124), interval score ( r = -0.4564, p = 0.0146), rhythmic score ( r = -0.5133, p = 0.0052), meter score ( r = -0.3937, p = 0.0382), and memory score ( r = -0.3879, p = 0.0414). There was a significant positive correlation between the mean sulcal depth in the right pars triangularis gyrus and the MBEA score, including the mean score ( r = 0.5130, p = 0.0052), scale score ( r = 0.5328, p = 0.0035), interval score ( r = 0.4059, p = 0.0321), rhythmic score ( r = 0.5733, p = 0.0014), meter score ( r = 0.5061, p = 0.0060), and memory score ( r = 0.4001, p = 0.0349). Conclusion: Individuals with CA exhibit cortical morphological changes in the right hemisphere. These findings may indicate that the neural basis of speech perception and memory impairments in individuals with CA is associated with abnormalities in the right pars triangularis gyrus and middle frontal gyrus, and that these cortical abnormalities may be a neural marker of CA., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Liao, Sun, Jin, Wu and Liu.)