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Xuejing Lu,1,2 William Forde Thompson,3,4 Libo Zhang,1,2 Li Hu1,2 1CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; 4ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, Sydney, New South Wales, AustraliaCorrespondence: Li HuCAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Beijing 100101, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86 18084053555Fax +86-10-84249369Email huli@psych.ac.cnBackground: Music is sometimes used as an adjunct to pain management. However, there is limited understanding of by what means music modulates pain perception and how the brain responds to nociceptive inputs while listening to music, because clinical practice typically involves the coexistence of multiple therapeutic interventions. To address this challenge, laboratory studies with experimental and control conditions are needed.Methods: In the present investigation, we delivered nociceptive laser stimuli on 30 participants under three conditions – participants were sitting in silence, listening to their preferred music, or listening to white noise. Differences among conditions were quantified by self-reports of pain intensity and unpleasantness, and brain activity sampled by electroencephalography (EEG).Results: Compared with the noise and silence conditions, participants in the music condition reported lower ratings on pain unpleasantness, as reflected by reduced brain oscillations immediately prior to the nociceptive laser stimulus at frequencies of 4–15 Hz in EEG. In addition, participants showed smaller P2 amplitudes in laser-evoked potentials (LEPs) when they were listening to music or white noise in comparison to sitting in silence. These findings suggest that a general modulation effect of sounds on pain, with a specific reduction of pain unpleasantness induced by the positive emotional impact.Conclusion: Music may serve as a real-time regulator to modulate pain unpleasantness. Results are discussed in view of current understandings of music-induced analgesia.Keywords: preferred music, pain, analgesic effect, emotional modulation, EEG, brain oscillations

Chanting, an ancient ritual practiced in diverse cultures and traditions worldwide, has typically been employed for meditation, healing, self-awareness, and psychological growth. However, there is little understanding of the physiological and psychological benefits of chanting, and how vocalization might contribute to such effects. This study aimed to determine whether 12-minutes of group chanting, through vocal or silent repetition of the sound "om," would reduce stress and anxiety, while increasing feelings of social connection, and whether vocal chanting would yield stronger effects. Thirty-four participants were randomly assigned to vocal or silent group chanting conditions. Saliva samples were collected before and after chanting to assess cortisol levels, while self-report measures included the State Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Adapted Self-Report Altruism Scale (including additional items on cross-cultural altruism). Following chanting, participants also provided a written description of their experiences. Both vocal and silent chanting resulted in significant decreases in cortisol levels and self-reported anxiety. The reduction in cortisol was similar for vocal and silent chanting, but self-reported anxiety decreased more following vocal chanting. Altruism scores increased following both vocal and silent chanting. However, there was no evidence of altruistic tendencies extending toward people from a culture other than one's own. Results are discussed in relation to the phenomenology of chanting, and to current theory and evidence on the physiological and psychological effects of chanting and singing., Competing Interests: Declarations Competing Interests The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Ethics Approval This study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Ethics Committee of Macquarie University (protocol code: 5201823832756). Informed Consent Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study., (© 2023. Crown.)

Humans perceive a range of basic emotional connotations from music, such as joy, sadness, and fear, which can be decoded from structural characteristics of music, such as rhythm, harmony, and timbre. However, despite theory and evidence that music has multiple social functions, little research has examined whether music conveys emotions specifically associated with social status and social connection. This investigation aimed to determine whether the social emotions of dominance and affiliation are perceived in music and whether structural features of music predict social emotions, just as they predict basic emotions. Participants (N = 1513) listened to subsets of 750 music excerpts and provided ratings of energy arousal, tension arousal, valence, dominance, and affiliation. Ratings were modelled based on ten structural features of music. Dominance and affiliation were readily perceived in music and predicted by structural features including rhythm, harmony, dynamics, and timbre. In turn, energy arousal, tension arousal and valence were also predicted by musical structure. We discuss the results in view of current models of music and emotion and propose research to illuminate the significance of social emotions in music., Competing Interests: Declarations Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The similarity of understanding is important for music experience and communication, but little is understood about the sources of this common knowledge. Although neural responses to the same piece of music are known to be similar across listeners, it remains unclear whether this neural response similarity is linked to musical understanding and the role of dynamic musical attributes in shaping it. Our study addresses this gap by investigating the relationship between neural response similarity, musical tension, and dynamic musical attributes. Using electroencephalography-based inter-subject correlation (EEG-ISC), we examined how the neural response similarity among listeners varies throughout the evaluation of musical tension in the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8. Participants continuously rated the degree of alignment between musical events and their expectations, while neural activity was recorded using electroencephalography (EEG). The results showed that neural response similarity fluctuated in tandem with musical tension, with increased similarity observed during moments of heightened tension. This time-varying neural response similarity was influenced by two dynamic attributes contributing to musical tension: physical features and musical themes. Specifically, its fluctuation was driven by physical features, and the patterns of its variation were modulated by musical themes, with similar time-varying patterns observed across similar thematic materials. These findings offer valuable insight into the role of dynamic musical attributes in shaping neural response similarity, and reveal an important source and mechanism of shared musical understandings., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease that affects millions of individuals worldwide. Dance has emerged as a comprehensive intervention for enhancing well-being in this population. This meta-analysis aimed to assess the effectiveness of dance on mental health and quality of life among individuals with PD., Methods: Three databases were searched in December 2022. Research papers comparing the effects of dance with a non-dance control on the quality of life or mental health of individuals with PD were included. Two authors independently screened the studies, extracted data, and assessed methodological quality of eligible studies. To address the interdependence of effect sizes within studies, the three-level meta-analysis approach was employed to analyze the data., Results: Thirteen trials involving a total of 496 participants were included, with 11 being subjected to statistical analysis. The results indicated that dance had a positive impact on mental health (g = 0.43, 95 % CI = [0.11, 0.75]) and quality of life (g = 0.46, 95 % CI = [-0.04, 0.95]) when compared to passive control groups. Moderator analyses revealed that non-partnered dance and dance interventions with lower total dosages were particularly beneficial for mental health., Conclusion: Dance interventions are an effective lifestyle activity for enhancing mental health and quality of life in individuals with PD. A theoretical framework is proposed to explain the impact of dance on well-being from neurological, social, physical, and psychological perspectives., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare none., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

A 62-year-old musician-MM-developed amusia after a right middle-cerebral-artery infarction. Initially, MM showed melodic deficits while discriminating pitch-related differences in melodies, musical memory problems, and impaired sensitivity to tonal structures, but normal pitch discrimination and spectral resolution thresholds, and normal cognitive and language abilities. His rhythmic processing was intact when pitch variations were removed. After 3 months, MM showed a large improvement in his sensitivity to tonality, but persistent melodic deficits and a decline in perceiving the metric structure of rhythmic sequences. We also found visual cues aided melodic processing, which is novel and beneficial for future rehabilitation practice.

Among human and non-human animals, the ability to respond rapidly to biologically significant events in the environment is essential for survival and development. Research has confirmed that human adult listeners respond emotionally to environmental sounds by relying on the same acoustic cues that signal emotionality in speech prosody and music. However, it is unknown whether young children also respond emotionally to environmental sounds. Here, we report that changes in pitch, rate (i.e. playback speed), and intensity (i.e. amplitude) of environmental sounds trigger emotional responses in 3- to 6-year-old American and Chinese children, including four sound types: sounds of human actions, animal calls, machinery, and natural phenomena such as wind and waves. Children's responses did not differ across the four types of sounds used but developed with age - a finding observed in both American and Chinese children. Thus, the ability to respond emotionally to non-linguistic, non-music environmental sounds is evident at three years of age - an age when the ability to decode emotional prosody in language and music emerges. We argue that general mechanisms that support emotional prosody decoding are engaged by all sounds, as reflected in emotional responses to non-linguistic acoustic input such as music and environmental sounds.

Past research has shown that listening to slow- or fast-tempo music can affect adults' executive attention (EA) performance. This study examined the immediate impact of brief exposure to slow- or fast-tempo music on EA performance in 4- to 6-year-old children. A within-subject design was used, where each child completed three blocks of the EA task after listening to fast-tempo music (fast-tempo block), slow-tempo music (slow-tempo block), and ocean waves (control block), with block-order counterbalanced. In each block, children were also asked to report their pre-task subjective emotional status (experienced arousal and valence) before listening to music and their post-task emotional status after the EA task. Three major results emerged. First, reaction time (RT) was significantly faster in the slow-tempo block than in the fast-tempo, suggesting that listening to slow-tempo music preserves processing efficiency, relative to fast-tempo music. Second, children's accuracy rate in the EA task did not differ across blocks. Third, children's subjective emotional status did not differ across blocks and did not change across the pre- and post-task phases in any block, suggesting the faster RT observed in the slow-tempo block cannot be explained by changes in arousal or mood., (© 2022. The Psychonomic Society, Inc.)

Many people listen to music that conveys challenging emotions such as sadness and anger, despite the commonly assumed purpose of media being to elicit pleasure. We propose that eudaimonic motivation, the desire to engage with aesthetic experiences to be challenged and facilitate meaningful experiences, can explain why people listen to music containing such emotions. However, it is unknown whether music containing violent themes can facilitate such meaningful experiences. In this investigation, three studies were conducted to determine the implications of eudaimonic and hedonic (pleasure-seeking) motivations for fans of music with violent themes. In Study 1, we developed and tested a new scale and showed that fans exhibit high levels of both types of motivation. Study 2 further validated the new scale and provided evidence that the two types of motivations are associated with different affective outcomes. Study 3 revealed that fans of violently themed music exhibited higher levels of eudaimonic motivation and lower levels of hedonic motivation than fans of non-violently themed music. Taken together, the findings support the notion that fans of music with violent themes are driven to engage with this music to be challenged and to pursue meaning, as well as to experience pleasure. Implications for fans' well-being and future applications of the new measure are discussed.

Rich intercultural music engagement (RIME) is an embodied form of engagement whereby individuals immerse themselves in foreign musical practice, for example, by learning a traditional instrument from that culture. The present investigation evaluated whether RIME with Chinese or Middle Eastern music can nurture intercultural understanding. White Australian participants were randomly assigned to one of two plucked-string groups: Chinese pipa ( n = 29) or Middle Eastern oud ( n = 29). Before and after the RIME intervention, participants completed measures of ethnocultural empathy, tolerance, social connectedness, explicit and implicit attitudes towards ethnocultural groups, and open-ended questions about their experience. Following RIME, White Australian participants reported a significant increase in ethnocultural empathy, tolerance, feelings of social connection, and improved explicit and implicit attitudes towards Chinese and Middle Eastern people. However, these benefits differed between groups. Participants who learned Chinese pipa reported reduced bias and increased social connectedness towards Chinese people, but not towards Middle Eastern people. Conversely, participants who learned Middle Eastern oud reported a significant increase in social connectedness towards Middle Eastern people, but not towards Chinese people. This is the first experimental evidence that participatory RIME is an effective tool for understanding a culture other than one's own, with the added potential to reduce cultural bias.

Research has investigated psychological processes in an attempt to explain how and why people appreciate music. Three programs of research have shed light on these processes. The first focuses on the appreciation of musical structure. The second investigates self-oriented responses to music, including music-evoked autobiographical memories, the reinforcement of a sense of self, and benefits to individual health and wellbeing. The third seeks to explain how music listeners become sensitive to the causal and contextual sources of music making, including the biomechanics of performance, knowledge of musicians and their intentions, and the cultural and historical context of music making. To date, these programs of research have been carried out with little interaction, and the third program has been omitted from most psychological enquiries into music appreciation. In this paper, we review evidence for these three forms of appreciation. The evidence reviewed acknowledges the enormous diversity in antecedents and causes of music appreciation across contexts, individuals, cultures, and historical periods. We identify the inputs and outputs of appreciation, propose processes that influence the forms that appreciation can take, and make predictions for future research. Evidence for source sensitivity is emphasized because the topic has been largely unacknowledged in previous discussions. This evidence implicates a set of unexplored processes that bring to mind causal and contextual details associated with music, and that shape our appreciation of music in important ways. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

While the benefits to mood and well-being from passionate engagement with music are well-established, far less is known about the relationship between passion for explicitly violently themed music and psychological well-being. The present study employed the Dualistic Model of Passion to investigate whether harmonious passion (i.e., passionate engagement that is healthily balanced with other life activities) predicts positive music listening experiences and/or psychological well-being in fans of violently themed music. We also investigated whether obsessive passion (i.e., uncontrollable passionate engagement with an activity) predicts negative music listening experiences and/or psychological ill-being. Fans of violently themed music ( N = 177) completed the passion scale, scale of positive and negative affective experiences, and various psychological well- and ill-being measures. As hypothesised, harmonious passion for violently themed music significantly predicted positive affective experiences which, in turn, predicted psychological well-being. Obsessive passion for violently themed music significantly predicted negative affective experiences which, in turn, predicted ill-being. Findings support the Dualistic Model of Passion, and suggest that even when music engagement includes violent content, adaptive outcomes are often experienced. We propose that the nature of one's passion for music is more influential in predicting well-being than the content or valence of the lyrical themes.

Chanting is practiced in many religious and secular traditions and involves rhythmic vocalization or mental repetition of a sound or phrase. This study examined how chanting relates to cognitive function, altered states, and quality of life across a wide range of traditions. A global survey was used to assess experiences during chanting including flow states, mystical experiences, mindfulness, and mind wandering. Further, attributes of chanting were assessed to determine their association with altered states and cognitive benefits, and whether psychological correlates of chanting are associated with quality of life. Responses were analyzed from 456 English speaking participants who regularly chant across 32 countries and various chanting traditions. Results revealed that different aspects of chanting were associated with distinctive experiential outcomes. Stronger intentionality (devotion, intention, sound) and higher chanting engagement (experience, practice duration, regularity) were associated with altered states and cognitive benefits. Participants whose main practice was call and response chanting reported higher scores of mystical experiences. Participants whose main practice was repetitive prayer reported lower mind wandering. Lastly, intentionality and engagement were associated with quality of life indirectly through altered states and cognitive benefits. This research sheds new light on the phenomenology and psychological consequences of chanting across a range of practices and traditions.

It is well established that adults can interpret emotional speech prosody independent of word meaning comprehension, even for emotional speech prosody in an unfamiliar language. However, the acquisition of this ability remains unclear. This study examined the decoding of four emotions (happy, sad, surprise, angry) conveyed with speech prosody in four languages (English, Chinese, French, Spanish) by American and Chinese children at 3 to 5 years of age-an age range when the ability to decode emotional prosody in one's native language emerges but remains fragile. Chinese and American children could decode the emotional meaning of speech prosody in both familiar and unfamiliar languages as young as 3 years old. Performance did not differ across the four languages used-a finding observed in both American and Chinese children. Thus, the in-group advantage of emotional prosody decoding reported for adults may not be evident by 5 years of age. Furthermore, emotional prosody decoding skills improved with age. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

DNA replication during S phase in eukaryotes is a highly regulated process that ensures the accurate transmission of genetic material to daughter cells during cell division. Replication follows a well-defined temporal program, which has been studied extensively in humans, Drosophila, and yeast, where it is clear that the replication process is both temporally and spatially ordered. The replication timing (RT) program is increasingly considered to be a functional readout of genomic features and chromatin organization. Although there is increasing evidence that plants display important differences in their DNA replication process compared to animals, RT programs in plants have not been extensively studied. To address this deficiency, we developed an improved protocol for the genome-wide RT analysis by sequencing newly replicated DNA ("Repli-seq") and applied it to the characterization of RT in maize root tips. Our protocol uses 5-ethynyl-2'-deoxyuridine (EdU) to label replicating DNA in vivo in intact roots. Our protocol also eliminates the need for synchronization and frequently associated chemical perturbations as well as the need for cell cultures, which can accumulate genetic and epigenetic differences over time. EdU can be fluorescently labeled under mild conditions and does not degrade subnuclear structure, allowing for the differentiation of labeled and unlabeled nuclei by flow sorting, effectively eliminating contamination issues that can result from sorting on DNA content alone. We also developed an analysis pipeline for analyzing and classifying regions of replication and present it in a point-and-click application called Repliscan that eliminates the need for command line programming., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Objectives: Children with hearing loss tend to have poorer psychosocial and quality of life outcomes than their typical-hearing (TH) peers-particularly in the areas of peer relationships and school functioning. A small number of studies for TH children have suggested that group-based music activities are beneficial for prosocial outcomes and help develop a sense of belonging. While one might question whether perceptual limitations would impede satisfactory participation in musical activities, findings from a few studies have suggested that group music activities may have similar benefits for children with hearing loss as well. It is important to note that the effect of music on psychosocial outcomes has primarily been investigated at an anecdotal level. The objective of this study was to explore the effect of a music training program on psychosocial and quality of life outcomes for children with hearing loss. It was hypothesized that music training would provide benefits for domains centered upon peer relationships and prosocial measures., Design: Fourteen children aged 6 to 9 years with prelingual sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) participated in a 12-week music training program that consisted of group-based face-to-face music therapy supplemented by online music apps. The design was a pseudorandomized, longitudinal study (9 participants were waitlisted, initially serving as a passive control group). Psychosocial wellbeing and quality of life were assessed using a questionnaire battery comprised of the Strengths and Difficulty Questionnaire (SDQ), the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory, the Hearing Environments and Reflection on Quality of Life (HEAR-QL), and the Glasgow Children's Benefit Inventory. For comparative purposes, responses were measured from 16 TH children that ranged in age from 6 to 9 years., Results: At baseline, children with SNHL had poorer outcomes for internalizing problems, and all measures of the HEAR-QL compared with the TH children. There were no differences for general psychosocial and physical health. After music training, SDQ internalizing problems such as peer relationships and emotional regulation were significantly reduced for the children with SNHL. There were no changes for any outcomes for the passive control group. Additional benefits were noted for emotional and learning factors on the Glasgow Children's Benefit Inventory. However, there were no significant changes for any psychosocial and quality of life outcomes as measured by the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory or HEAR-QL instruments., Conclusions: The present study provides initial evidence that music training has a positive effect on at least some psychosocial and quality of life outcomes for children with hearing loss. As they are at a greater risk of poorer psychosocial and quality of life outcomes, these findings are cause for cautious optimism. Children with hearing loss should be encouraged to participate in group-based musical activities., (Copyright © 2021 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.)

In five people with severe dementia, we measured their behavioral and physiological responses to familiar/unfamiliar music and speech, and measured ERP responses to subject's own name (SON) after exposure to familiar/unfamiliar music or noise. We observed more frequent behavioral responses to personally-significant stimuli than non-personally-significant stumuli, and higher skin temperatures for music than non-music conditions. The control group showed typical ERPs to SON, regardless of auditory exposure. ERP measures were unavailable for the dementia group given challenges of measuring EEG in this population. The study highlights the potential for personally-significant auditory stimuli in enhancing responsiveness of people with severe dementia.

Pain is essential for our survival because it helps to protect us from severe injuries. Nociceptive signals may be exacerbated by continued physical activities but can also be interrupted or overridden by physical movements, a process called movement-induced hypoalgesia. Several neural mechanisms have been proposed to account for this effect, including the reafference principle, non-nociceptive interference, and top-down descending modulation. Given that the hypoalgesic effects of these mechanisms temporally overlap during movement execution, it is unclear whether movement-induced hypoalgesia results from a single neural mechanism or from the joint action of multiple neural mechanisms. To address this question, we conducted five experiments on 129 healthy humans by assessing the hypoalgesic effect after movement execution. Combining psychophysics and electroencephalographic recordings, we quantified the relationship between the strength of voluntary movement and the hypoalgesic effect, as well as the temporal and spatial characteristics of the hypoalgesic effect. Our findings demonstrated that movement-induced hypoalgesia results from the joint action of multiple neural mechanisms. This investigation is the first to disentangle the distinct contributions of different neural mechanisms to the hypoalgesic effect of voluntary movement, which extends our understanding of sensory attenuation arising from voluntary movement and may prove instrumental in developing new strategies for pain management., (© 2021 New York Academy of Sciences.)

The ancient practice of chanting typically takes place within a community as a part of a live ceremony or ritual. Research suggests that chanting leads to improved mood, reduced stress, and increased wellbeing. During the global pandemic, many chanting practices were moved online in order to adhere to social distancing recommendations. However, it is unclear whether the benefits of live chanting occur when practiced in an online format. The present study assessed the effects of a 10-min online chanting session on stress, mood, and connectedness, carried out either in a group or individually. The study employed a 2 (chanting vs. control) × 2 (group vs. individual) between-subjects design. Participants ( N = 117) were pseudo-randomly allocated across the four conditions. Before and after participation, individuals completed the Spielberg's State Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, the Social Connectedness Scale and Aron's Inclusion of Self in Other Scale. Online chanting led to a significant reduction in stress and an increase in positive affect when compared to the online control task. Participants who took part in group chanting also felt more connected to members of their chanting group than participants in the control group. However, feelings of general connectedness to all people remained similar across conditions. The investigation provides evidence that online chanting may be a useful psychosocial intervention, whether practiced individually or in a group., 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 © 2021 Simpson, Perry and Thompson.)

The ability to silently hear music in the mind has been argued to be fundamental to musicality. Objective measurements of this subjective imagery experience are needed if this link between imagery ability and musicality is to be investigated. However, previous tests of musical imagery either rely on self-report, rely on melodic memory, or do not cater in range of abilities. The Pitch Imagery Arrow Task (PIAT) was designed to address these shortcomings; however, it is impractically long. In this paper, we shorten the PIAT using adaptive testing and automatic item generation. We interrogate the cognitive processes underlying the PIAT through item response modelling. The result is an efficient online test of auditory mental imagery ability (adaptive Pitch Imagery Arrow Task: aPIAT) that takes 8 min to complete, is adaptive to participant's individual ability, and so can be used to test participants with a range of musical backgrounds. Performance on the aPIAT showed positive moderate-to-strong correlations with measures of non-musical and musical working memory, self-reported musical training, and general musical sophistication. Ability on the task was best predicted by the ability to maintain and manipulate tones in mental imagery, as well as to resist perceptual biases that can lead to incorrect responses. As such, the aPIAT is the ideal tool in which to investigate the relationship between pitch imagery ability and musicality.

5-methyl cytosine is widespread in plant genomes in both CG and non-CG contexts. During replication, hemi-methylation on parental DNA strands guides symmetric CG methylation on nascent strands, but non-CG methylation requires modified histones and small RNA guides. Here, we used immortalized Arabidopsis cell suspensions to sort replicating nuclei and determine genome-wide cytosine methylation dynamics during the plant cell cycle. We find that symmetric mCG and mCHG are selectively retained in actively dividing cells in culture, whereas mCHH is depleted. mCG becomes transiently asymmetric during S phase but is rapidly restored in G2, whereas mCHG remains asymmetric throughout the cell cycle. Hundreds of loci gain ectopic CHG methylation, as well as 24-nt small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and histone H3 lysine dimethylation (H3K9me2), without gaining CHH methylation. This suggests that spontaneous epialleles that arise in plant cell cultures are stably maintained by siRNA and H3K9me2 independent of the canonical RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM) pathway. In contrast, loci that fail to produce siRNA may be targeted for demethylation when the cell cycle arrests. Comparative analysis with methylomes of various tissues and cell types suggests that loss of small-RNA-directed non-CG methylation during DNA replication promotes germline reprogramming and epigenetic variation in plants propagated as clones., Competing Interests: Declaration of Interests The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Chanting is a form of rhythmic, repetitive vocalization practiced in a wide range of cultures. It is used in spiritual practice to strengthen community, heal illness, and overcome psychological and emotional difficulties. In many traditions, chanting is used to induce mystical states, an altered state of consciousness characterised by a profound sense of peace. Despite the global prevalence of chanting, its psychological effects are poorly understood. This investigation examined the psychological and contextual factors associated with mystical states during chanting. Data were analyzed from 464 participants across 33 countries who regularly engaged in chanting. Results showed that 60% of participants experienced mystical states during chanting. Absorption, altruism, and religiosity were higher among people who reported mystical states while chanting compared to those who did not report mystical states. There was no difference in mystical experience scores between vocal, silent, group or individual chanting and no difference in the prevalence of mystical states across chanting traditions. However, an analysis of subscales suggested that mystical experiences were especially characterised by positive mood and feelings of ineffability. The research sheds new light on factors that impact upon chanting experiences. A framework for understanding mystical states during chanting is proposed.

Plant cells undergo two types of cell cycles-the mitotic cycle in which DNA replication is coupled to mitosis, and the endocycle in which DNA replication occurs in the absence of cell division. To investigate DNA replication programs in these two types of cell cycles, we pulse labeled intact root tips of maize (Zea mays) with 5-ethynyl-2'-deoxyuridine (EdU) and used flow sorting of nuclei to examine DNA replication timing (RT) during the transition from a mitotic cycle to an endocycle. Comparison of the sequence-based RT profiles showed that most regions of the maize genome replicate at the same time during S phase in mitotic and endocycling cells, despite the need to replicate twice as much DNA in the endocycle and the fact that endocycling is typically associated with cell differentiation. However, regions collectively corresponding to 2% of the genome displayed significant changes in timing between the two types of cell cycles. The majority of these regions are small with a median size of 135 kb, shift to a later RT in the endocycle, and are enriched for genes expressed in the root tip. We found larger regions that shifted RT in centromeres of seven of the ten maize chromosomes. These regions covered the majority of the previously defined functional centromere, which ranged between 1 and 2 Mb in size in the reference genome. They replicate mainly during mid S phase in mitotic cells but primarily in late S phase of the endocycle. In contrast, the immediately adjacent pericentromere sequences are primarily late replicating in both cell cycles. Analysis of CENH3 enrichment levels in 8C vs 2C nuclei suggested that there is only a partial replacement of CENH3 nucleosomes after endocycle replication is complete. The shift to later replication of centromeres and possible reduction in CENH3 enrichment after endocycle replication is consistent with a hypothesis that centromeres are inactivated when their function is no longer needed., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

The processing of temporal structure has been widely investigated, but evidence on how the brain processes temporal and nontemporal structures simultaneously is sparse. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we examined how the brain responds to temporal (metric) and nontemporal (harmonic) structures in music simultaneously, and whether these processes are impacted by musical expertise. Fifteen musicians and 15 nonmusicians rated the degree of completeness of musical sequences with or without violations in metric or harmonic structures. In the single violation conditions, the ERP results showed that both musicians and nonmusicians exhibited an early right anterior negativity (ERAN) as well as an N5 to temporal violations ("when"), and only an N5-like response to nontemporal violations ("what"), which were consistent with the behavioral results. In the double violation condition, however, only the ERP results, but not the behavioral results, revealed a significant interaction between temporal and nontemporal violations at a later integrative stage, as manifested by an enlarged N5 effect compared to the single violation conditions. These findings provide the first evidence that the human brain uses different neural mechanisms in processing metric and harmonic structures in music, which may shed light on how the brain generates predictions for "what" and "when" events in the natural environment., (© 2020 Society for Psychophysiological Research.)

Two separate lines of research have examined the influence of song and infant-directed speech (IDS-a speech register that includes some melodic features) on language learning, suggesting that the use of musical attributes in speech input can enhance language learning. However, the benefits of these two types of stimuli have never been directly compared. In this investigation, we compared the effects of song and IDS for immediate word learning and long-term memory of the learned words. This study examines whether the highly musical stimuli (i.e., song) would facilitate language learning more than the less musical stimuli (i.e., IDS). English-speaking adults were administered a word learning task, with Mandarin Chinese words presented in adult-directed speech (ADS), IDS, or song. Participants' word learning performance was assessed immediately after the word learning task (immediate word learning) and then 1 day later (long-term memory). Results showed that both song and IDS facilitated immediate word learning and long-term memory of the words; however, this facilitative effect did not differ between IDS and song, suggesting that the relationship between the degree of musicality and language learning performance is not linear. In addition, song and IDS were found to facilitate the word association process (mapping a label to its referent) rather than the word recognition process. Finally, participants' confidence in their answers might not differ among ADS, IDS, and sung words.

Purpose A growing body of evidence suggests that long-term music training provides benefits to auditory abilities for typical-hearing adults and children. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how music training may provide perceptual benefits (such as speech-in-noise, spectral resolution, and prosody) for children with hearing loss. Method Fourteen children aged 6-9 years with prelingual sensorineural hearing loss using bilateral cochlear implants, bilateral hearing aids, or bimodal configuration participated in a 12-week music training program, with nine participants completing the full testing requirements of the music training. Activities included weekly group-based music therapy and take-home music apps three times a week. The design was a pseudorandomized, longitudinal study (half the cohort was wait-listed, initially serving as a passive control group prior to music training). The test battery consisted of tasks related to music perception, music appreciation, and speech perception. As a comparison, 16 age-matched children with typical hearing also completed this test battery, but without participation in the music training. Results There were no changes for any outcomes for the passive control group. After music training, perception of speech-in-noise, question/statement prosody, musical timbre, and spectral resolution improved significantly, as did measures of music appreciation. There were no benefits for emotional prosody or pitch perception. Conclusion The findings suggest even a modest amount of music training has benefits for music and speech outcomes. These preliminary results provide further evidence that music training is a suitable complementary means of habilitation to improve the outcomes for children with hearing loss.

Music has cognitive, psychosocial, behavioral and motor benefits for people with neurological disorders such as dementia, stroke, Parkinson's disease (PD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Here we discuss seven properties or 'capacities' of music that interact with brain function and contribute to its therapeutic value. Specifically, in its various forms, music can be engaging, emotional, physical, personal, social and persuasive, and it promotes synchronization of movement. We propose the Therapeutic Music Capacities Model (TMCM), which links individual properties of music to therapeutic mechanisms, leading to cognitive, psychosocial, behavioral and motor benefits. We review evidence that these capacities have reliable benefits for people with dementia, stroke, PD and ASD when employed separately or in combination. The model accounts for the profound value that music affords human health and well-being and provides a framework for the development of non-pharmaceutical treatments for neurological disorders., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The selection and firing of DNA replication origins play key roles in ensuring that eukaryotes accurately replicate their genomes. This process is not well documented in plants due in large measure to difficulties in working with plant systems. We developed a new functional assay to label and map very early replicating loci that must, by definition, include at least a subset of replication origins. Arabidopsis ( Arabidopsis thaliana ) cells were briefly labeled with 5-ethynyl-2'-deoxy-uridine, and nuclei were subjected to two-parameter flow sorting. We identified more than 5500 loci as initiation regions (IRs), the first regions to replicate in very early S phase. These were classified as strong or weak IRs based on the strength of their replication signals. Strong initiation regions were evenly spaced along chromosomal arms and depleted in centromeres, while weak initiation regions were enriched in centromeric regions. IRs are AT-rich sequences flanked by more GC-rich regions and located predominantly in intergenic regions. Nuclease sensitivity assays indicated that IRs are associated with accessible chromatin. Based on these observations, initiation of plant DNA replication shows some similarity to, but is also distinct from, initiation in other well-studied eukaryotic systems., (© 2020 American Society of Plant Biologists. All Rights Reserved.)

In tonal music, continuous acoustic waveforms are mapped onto discrete, hierarchically arranged, internal representations of pitch. To examine the neural dynamics underlying this transformation, we presented male and female human listeners with tones embedded within a Western tonal context while recording their cortical activity using magnetoencephalography. Machine learning classifiers were then trained to decode different tones from their underlying neural activation patterns at each peristimulus time sample, providing a dynamic measure of their dissimilarity in cortex. Comparing the time-varying dissimilarity between tones with the predictions of acoustic and perceptual models, we observed a temporal evolution in the brain's representational structure. Whereas initial dissimilarities mirrored their fundamental-frequency separation, dissimilarities beyond 200 ms reflected the perceptual status of each tone within the tonal hierarchy of Western music. These effects occurred regardless of stimulus regularities within the context or whether listeners were engaged in a task requiring explicit pitch analysis. Lastly, patterns of cortical activity that discriminated between tones became increasingly stable in time as the information coded by those patterns transitioned from low-to-high level properties. Current results reveal the dynamics with which the complex perceptual structure of Western tonal music emerges in cortex at the timescale of an individual tone. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Little is understood about how the brain transforms an acoustic waveform into the complex perceptual structure of musical pitch. Applying neural decoding techniques to the cortical activity of human subjects engaged in music listening, we measured the dynamics of information processing in the brain on a moment-to-moment basis as subjects heard each tone. In the first 200 ms after onset, transient patterns of neural activity coded the fundamental frequency of tones. Subsequently, a period emerged during which more temporally stable activation patterns coded the perceptual status of each tone within the "tonal hierarchy" of Western music. Our results provide a crucial link between the complex perceptual structure of tonal music and the underlying neural dynamics from which it emerges., (Copyright © 2020 the authors.)

Music is highly efficient at evoking autobiographical memories in both healthy and neurological populations. Music evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) are preserved in people with Alzheimer's Dementia (AD), and occur at the same frequency as in healthy people. To date there has been no investigation of the integrity of MEAMs in people with non-AD dementia. This study provides the first characterisation of the frequency and specificity of MEAMs and photo evoked autobiographical memories (PEAMs) in 6 people with Behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (Bv-FTD). We found significantly reduced frequency and specificity of MEAMs and PEAMs in people with Bv-FTD compared with healthy elderly. This supports the known decline in autobiographical memory function in this population, and the integral role of medial frontal regions in the retrieval of MEAMs. Our findings highlight that the mnemonic effects of music vary between people with different types of dementia, which has implications for dementia care.

Recent magnetoencephalography (MEG) studies have established that sensorimotor brain rhythms are strongly modulated during mental imagery of musical beat and rhythm, suggesting that motor regions of the brain are important for temporal aspects of musical imagery. The present study examined whether these rhythms also play a role in non-temporal aspects of musical imagery including musical pitch. Brain function was measured with MEG from 19 healthy adults while they performed a validated musical pitch imagery task and two non-imagery control tasks with identical temporal characteristics. A 4-dipole source model probed activity in bilateral auditory and sensorimotor cortices. Significantly greater β-band modulation was found during imagery compared to control tasks of auditory perception and mental arithmetic. Imagery-induced β-modulation showed no significant differences between auditory and sensorimotor regions, which may reflect a tightly coordinated mode of communication between these areas. Directed connectivity analysis in the θ-band revealed that the left sensorimotor region drove left auditory region during imagery onset. These results add to the growing evidence that motor regions of the brain are involved in the top-down generation of musical imagery, and that imagery-like processes may be involved in musical perception.

Background: Music is being increasingly used as a therapeutic tool for people with dementia. Research has uncovered several qualities of music that are responsible for its beneficial effects. Based on the identification of seven therapeutic capacities of music, we devised the Music, Mind, and Movement (MMM) program and evaluated whether it had therapeutic benefit for people with dementia (various types) in the areas of cognition, mood, identity, and motor fluency., Methods: The MMM program involved seven 45-min weekly group sessions, and individual 15-min "booster" sessions. Twenty people with mild to moderate dementia participated. Group 1 ( n = 10) completed the MMM program first and Group 2 ( n = 10) acted as a wait list control for 7 weeks, receiving standard care and completing the MMM program after the first group. Assessments of global cognition (Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination, ACE-III), mood (Geriatric Depression Scale short form), identity ('I am' task), and fine motor skills (9-Hole peg task) were conducted at baseline (T1), time 2 (T2, post treatment), and time 3 (T3, 1 month post MMM program)., Results: Within group comparisons were conducted with 12 participants from the MMM program and 10 participants receiving standard care. Global cognition (total ACE-III score) improved in 8/12 participants after the MMM program, whilst it decreased in 8/10 participants after the period of standard care. MMM participants showed increases in ACE-III subdomain scores of attention ( p = 0.007) and verbal fluency ( p = 0.056)., Conclusion: Our preliminary findings suggest that the MMM program may improve cognition, particularly verbal fluency and attention, in people with dementia.

It is suggested that long-term exposure to violent media may decrease sensitivity to depictions of violence. However, it is unknown whether persistent exposure to music with violent themes affects implicit violent imagery processing. Using a binocular rivalry paradigm, we investigated whether the presence of violent music influences conscious awareness of violent imagery among fans and non-fans of such music. Thirty-two fans and 48 non-fans participated in the study. Violent and neutral pictures were simultaneously presented one to each eye, and participants indicated which picture they perceived (i.e. violent percept, neutral percept or blend of two) via key presses, while they heard Western popular music with lyrics that expressed happiness or Western extreme metal music with lyrics that expressed violence. We found both fans and non-fans of violent music exhibited a general negativity bias for violent imagery over neutral imagery regardless of the music genres. For non-fans, this bias was stronger while listening to music that expressed violence than while listening to music that expressed happiness. For fans of violent music, however, the bias was the same while listening to music that expressed either violence or happiness. We discussed these results in view of current debates on the impact of violent media., Competing Interests: We declare we have no competing interests.

Music and language are complex hierarchical systems in which individual elements are systematically combined to form larger, syntactic structures. Suggestions that music and language share syntactic processing resources have relied on evidence that syntactic violations in music interfere with syntactic processing in language. However, syntactic violations may affect auditory processing in non-syntactic ways, accounting for reported interference effects. To investigate the factors contributing to interference effects, we assessed recall of visually presented sentences and word-lists when accompanied by background auditory stimuli differing in syntactic structure and auditory distraction: melodies without violations, scrambled melodies, melodies that alternate in timbre, and environmental sounds. In Experiment 1, one-timbre melodies interfered with sentence recall, and increasing both syntactic complexity and distraction by scrambling melodies increased this interference. In contrast, three-timbre melodies reduced interference on sentence recall, presumably because alternating instruments interrupted auditory streaming, reducing pressure on long-distance syntactic structure building. Experiment 2 confirmed that participants were better at discriminating syntactically coherent one-timbre melodies than three-timbre melodies. Together, these results illustrate that syntactic processing and auditory streaming interact to influence sentence recall, providing implications for theories of shared syntactic processing and auditory distraction.

Neuroscientific research has revealed interconnected brain networks implicated in musical creativity, such as the executive control network, the default mode network, and premotor cortices. The present study employed brain stimulation to evaluate the role of the primary motor cortex (M1) in creative and technically fluent jazz piano improvisations. We implemented transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to alter the neural activation patterns of the left hemispheric M1 whilst pianists performed improvisations with their right hand. Two groups of expert jazz pianists ( n = 8 per group) performed five improvisations in each of two blocks. In Block 1, they improvised in the absence of brain stimulation. In Block 2, one group received inhibitory tDCS and the second group received excitatory tDCS while performing five new improvisations. Three independent expert-musicians judged the 160 performances on creativity and technical fluency using a 10-point Likert scale. As the M1 is involved in the acquisition and consolidation of motor skills and the control of hand orientation and velocity, we predicted that excitatory tDCS would increase the quality of improvisations relative to inhibitory tDCS. Indeed, improvisations under conditions of excitatory tDCS were rated as significantly more creative than those under conditions of inhibitory tDCS. A music analysis indicated that excitatory tDCS elicited improvisations with greater pitch range and number/variety of notes. Ratings of technical fluency did not differ significantly between tDCS groups. We discuss plausible mechanisms by which the M1 region contributes to musical creativity.

Presented here are data from Next-Generation Sequencing of differential micrococcal nuclease digestions of formaldehyde-crosslinked chromatin in selected tissues of maize ( Zea mays ) inbred line B73. Supplemental materials include a wet-bench protocol for making DNS-seq libraries, the DNS-seq data processing pipeline for producing genome browser tracks. This report also includes the peak-calling pipeline using the iSeg algorithm to segment positive and negative peaks from the DNS-seq difference profiles. The data repository for the sequence data is the NCBI SRA, BioProject Accession PRJNA44570 8.

Music and language both rely on the processing of spectral (pitch, timbre) and temporal (rhythm) information to create structure and meaning from incoming auditory streams. Behavioral results have shown that interrupting a melodic stream with unexpected changes in timbre leads to reduced syntactic processing. Such findings suggest that syntactic processing is conditional on successful streaming of incoming sequential information. The current study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate whether (1) the effect of alternating timbres on syntactic processing is reflected in a reduced brain response to syntactic violations, and (2) the phenomenon is similar for music and language. Participants listened to melodies and sentences with either one timbre (piano or one voice) or three timbres (piano, guitar, and vibraphone, or three different voices). Half the stimuli contained syntactic violations: an out-of-key note in the melodies, and a phrase-structure violation in the sentences. We found smaller ERPs to syntactic violations in music in the three-timbre compared to the one-timbre condition, reflected in a reduced early right anterior negativity (ERAN). A similar but non-significant pattern was observed for language stimuli in both the early left anterior negativity (ELAN) and the left anterior negativity (LAN) ERPs. The results suggest that disruptions to auditory streaming may interfere with syntactic processing, especially for melodic sequences., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Evidence is accumulating that similar cognitive resources are engaged to process syntactic structure in music and language. Congenital amusia - a neurodevelopmental disorder that primarily affects music perception, including musical syntax - provides a special opportunity to understand the nature of this overlap. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we investigated whether individuals with congenital amusia have parallel deficits in processing language syntax in comparison to control participants. Twelve amusic participants (eight females) and 12 control participants (eight females) were presented melodies in one session, and spoken sentences in another session, both of which had syntactic-congruent and -incongruent stimuli. They were asked to complete a music-related and a language-related task that were irrelevant to the syntactic incongruities. Our results show that amusic participants exhibit impairments in the early stages of both music- and language-syntactic processing. Specifically, we found that two event-related potential (ERP) components - namely Early Right Anterior Negativity (ERAN) and Left Anterior Negativity (LAN), associated with music- and language-syntactic processing respectively, were absent in the amusia group. However, at later processing stages, amusics showed similar brain responses as controls to syntactic incongruities in both music and language. This was reflected in a normal N5 in response to melodies and a normal P600 to spoken sentences. Notably, amusics' parallel music- and language-syntactic impairments were not accompanied by deficits in semantic processing (indexed by normal N400 in response to semantic incongruities). Together, our findings provide further evidence for shared music and language syntactic processing, particularly at early stages of processing.

Eukaryotes use a temporally regulated process, known as the replication timing program, to ensure that their genomes are fully and accurately duplicated during S phase. Replication timing programs are predictive of genomic features and activity and are considered to be functional readouts of chromatin organization. Although replication timing programs have been described for yeast and animal systems, much less is known about the temporal regulation of plant DNA replication or its relationship to genome sequence and chromatin structure. We used the thymidine analog, 5-ethynyl-2'-deoxyuridine, in combination with flow sorting and Repli-Seq to describe, at high-resolution, the genome-wide replication timing program for Arabidopsis ( Arabidopsis thaliana ) Col-0 suspension cells. We identified genomic regions that replicate predominantly during early, mid, and late S phase, and correlated these regions with genomic features and with data for chromatin state, accessibility, and long-distance interaction. Arabidopsis chromosome arms tend to replicate early while pericentromeric regions replicate late. Early and mid-replicating regions are gene-rich and predominantly euchromatic, while late regions are rich in transposable elements and primarily heterochromatic. However, the distribution of chromatin states across the different times is complex, with each replication time corresponding to a mixture of states. Early and mid-replicating sequences interact with each other and not with late sequences, but early regions are more accessible than mid regions. The replication timing program in Arabidopsis reflects a bipartite genomic organization with early/mid-replicating regions and late regions forming separate, noninteracting compartments. The temporal order of DNA replication within the early/mid compartment may be modulated largely by chromatin accessibility., (© 2018 American Society of Plant Biologists. All Rights Reserved.)

In music, the perception of pitch is governed largely by its tonal function given the preceding harmonic structure of the music. While behavioral research has advanced our understanding of the perceptual representation of musical pitch, relatively little is known about its representational structure in the brain. Using Magnetoencephalography (MEG), we recorded evoked neural responses to different tones presented within a tonal context. Multivariate Pattern Analysis (MVPA) was applied to "decode" the stimulus that listeners heard based on the underlying neural activity. We then characterized the structure of the brain's representation using decoding accuracy as a proxy for representational distance, and compared this structure to several well established perceptual and acoustic models. The observed neural representation was best accounted for by a model based on the Standard Tonal Hierarchy, whereby differences in the neural encoding of musical pitches correspond to their differences in perceived stability. By confirming that perceptual differences honor those in the underlying neuronal population coding, our results provide a crucial link in understanding the cognitive foundations of musical pitch across psychological and neural domains.

Background: Music evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) have been documented in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD), but it is unclear whether music is more effective than other familiar stimuli at evoking memories., Objective: To explore the frequency and specificity of memories in response to famous songs compared with photographs of famous events (photograph evoked autobiographical memories, PEAMs), and whether stimuli from the period of the reminiscence bump (10-30 years of age) were more likely to elicit memories., Methods: 10 participants with AD and 10 aged-matched healthy elderly people reported memories following exposure to 2 songs (longest time at number one in Australian music charts) and 2 photographs (of prominent famous events) from each decade from 1930 to 2010., Results: PEAMs were more frequent than MEAMs in healthy elderly (p < 0.05), but no such differences were observed among people with AD. There was no difference in the frequency of MEAMs between groups, but people with AD showed a significant decline in the frequency of PEAMs. In both groups, MEAMs were typically less specific than PEAMs and comprised semantic knowledge or repeated/extended events. Stimuli from when participants were aged 10-30 years triggered more frequent memories compared with stimuli from later decades, but this was only statistically significant for MEAMs., Conclusion: Our findings indicate a preserved mnemonic effect of music relative to pictures in this patient population, corroborating suggestions that MEAMs represent an island of preservation during the progression of AD.