Musical morphology.

Morphologic measures have long been used to determine the patho-anatomical signature of different neurologic disorders. However, these measures can also be used to determine effects of specific learning tasks and quantifiable human abilities on cerebral structure. Musicians provide interesting opportunities for this type of analysis as their various skills, such as rhythmic ability and pitch and harmony discrimination (acquired through years of practicing and playing) can be quantified and compared using distinct morphologic analyses. Here, we review magnetic resonance imaging-based morphologic analyses in the music and neuroscience literature and provide some results from our own analysis of rhythmic ability in a cohort of musicians.