Musical training leads to sensory and motor neuroplastic changes in the human brain. Motivatedby findings on enlarged corpus callosum in musicians and asymmetric somatomotorrepresentation in string players, we investigated the relationship between musical training,callosal anatomy, and interhemispheric functional symmetry during music listening. Functionalsymmetry was increased in musicians compared to nonmusicians, and in keyboardistscompared to string players. This increased functional symmetry was prominent in visualand motor brain networks. Callosal size did not significantly differ between groups exceptfor the posterior callosum in musicians compared to nonmusicians. We conclude that thedistinctive postural and kinematic symmetry in instrument playing cross-modally shapesinformation processing in sensory-motor cortical areas during music listening. This crossmodalplasticity suggests that motor training affects music perception.
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