UNLOCKING THE MUSICAL BRAIN: AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO PLAYING THE PIANO IN AN MRI SCANNER

The piano is a popular instrument in musical practice, but only a few MRI studies investigate the neuronal mechanisms underlying playing it. MRI-compatible piano requires adaptations for size and materials used. Moreover, study designs often sacrifice ecological validity for experimental controllabillity. We present open-source, proof-of-concept experimental fMRI paradigms used for the validation of our original, highly ecological, MRI-compatible keyboard. Twenty pianists (female, 19‑26 yo) first listened to familiar naturalistic polyphonic musical stimuli, and then replayed them. Neuroimaging data were preprocessed with fMRIPrep and statistically analysed in SPM12. We directly compared listen and playback conditions using one-sample t-tests and cluster-correction. Neuroimaging data analyses revealed stronger bilateral activation related to listening in precuneus, superior and middle temporal gyri, medial frontal cortex, angular and supramarginal gyri, hippocampus, thalamus, putamen, caudate nuclei, supplementary motor cortex, middle frontal gyrus and cerebellum. In the literature, these regions are associated with musical processing, memory and familiarity, and motor planning. In contrast, playback evoked stronger responses in the left sensorimotor area, right cerebellum and bilateral operculum, which are involved in motor control and performance monitoring. We show that naturalistic, ecological MRI study on piano playing is feasible and provide off‑the‑shelf solutions to facilitate open and replicable science.