Does musical training affect neuro-cognition of emotions? An EEG study with Indian Classical Instrumental Music

Music evokes a variety of emotions, irrespective of its genre, timbre, and tempo. Indian classical music (ICM), the age-old tradition of the sub-continent is no exception and instrumental music forms one broad section of ICM. In the present study, we have tried to compare the neural responses of music practitioners and non-musicians using audio clips of one of the most popular string instruments of ICM, Sarod. From an extensive audience response survey, a total of 8 Sarod clips having maximum arousal for happy and sad emotions were identified. The neuronal activities corresponding to these two emotional classes were assessed with EEG (Electroencephalography) experiments performed on 10 participants belonging to two categories – musicians and non-musicians. A robust nonlinear multifractal technique, MFDFA along with other associated features was applied to quantitatively measure the changes in different brain lobes for both categories of subjects. Detailed analysis showed, brain responses of musicians were characterized by higher complexity and coherence than non-musicians. Non-musicians showed dominance of smaller fluctuation ranges in their neural response signals. In essence, this study attempts to encapsulate and compare how prior musical training influences the brain responses of two basic musical emotions using musical clips of the Indian instrument, Sarod.