Schedule of Events | Symposia

Joint Connectivity between Sensorimotor and Auditory-Reward Networks During Resting State and Music Listening

Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Kai Yi (Kaye) Han¹ (han.kaiy@northeastern.edu), Corinna Parrish¹, Jinyu Wang¹, Psyche Loui¹; ¹Northeastern University

Music listening activates the auditory, motor, and reward networks, and their interactions are crucial to its pleasurable nature. Here, we compared functional connectivity between auditory-reward and motor networks during rest and music listening. N=40 young adults completed working memory (2-Back) and Sustained Attention to Response (SART) tasks while listening to music. ROI-to-ROI connectivity analyses replicated previous findings of significant within- and between-network connectivity in the auditory and reward networks during both rest and task. Additionally, we found significant connectivity within and between the motor and auditory-reward networks during rest and task. We then examined connectivity differences between task and rest and found enhanced functional connectivity within the auditory network and within the motor network, but reduced functional connectivity between the auditory and motor networks during task. Specifically, auditory areas showed lower connectivity towards bilateral precentral gyri, left postcentral gyrus, and bilateral supplementary motor areas during SART, and towards bilateral precentral gyri during the 2-Back task. In contrast, both tasks enhanced functional connectivity between the reward and motor networks. We found higher connectivity from reward areas to bilateral superior frontal gyri (SFG) during the 2-Back task, and to bilateral SFG and left middle frontal gyrus during SART. We also saw greater increased connectivity between the right SFG and insula cortex during both tasks. Ongoing work involves examining effects of individual differences in musical reward sensitivity, musical training, and sustained attention. Results suggest that engaging in cognitive tasks during music listening increases within-network but reduces out-of-network connectivity from auditory areas.

Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Audition