Music driven stress regulation depends on developmental timing of music exposure in the PFC
Poster No:
779
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Kelsie Lopez1, Nicholas Kathios1, Rebecca Hennessy1, Quincy Dillard1, Fahim Ahmed2, Rishitha Kudaravalli1, Juliet Davidow1, Psyche Loui1, Laurel Gabard-Durnam1
Institutions:
1Northeastern University, Boston, MA, 2Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Listening to music is a powerful modulator of emotion that has been shown to effectively down-regulate negative emotions in stressful contexts (Toma et al., 2013). Evidence from rodent models suggests that there is a sensitive period before puberty when acoustic stimuli, like music, shape medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) responses that regulate affect in the context of acute stress in adulthood (Yang et al., 2012). The present study examines whether a similar sensitive period for the mPFC occurs during human development, such that music from the early developmental time period would be more effective at modulating mPFC activity and down-regulating stress in adulthood.
Methods:
In an fMRI paradigm, young adults (20-22 years old; n = 28) are administered a stressor to induce acute stress and generate opportunity to regulate in response to music first heard during different developmental windows. Participants are first exposed to pre-stressor baseline music listening with 15 blocks of 19.95 second song clips, randomized based on music from their preschool (4-6 years), childhood (7-9 years), and adolescent (15-17 years) time periods (5 blocks per time period). Following baseline listening, participants are given 15 blocks of 44.5 second speeded math test questions. Between stressor blocks, they are exposed to 19.95 seconds of a song from their preschool, childhood, or adolescence (5 blocks per song time period), presented in counterbalanced runs. fMRI data was preprocessed using fMRIPrep (Esteban et al., 2019) and the Conn Toolbox (Whitfield-Gabrieli et al., 2012). Analyses focused on whole-brain contrasts of post-stressor preschool vs. post-stressor adolescent music, post-stressor childhood vs. post-stressor adolescent music, and post-stressor adolescent vs. both post-stressor preschool and childhood music. Region-of-interest analyses were specified for the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), structurally defined through the Harvard-Oxford Atlas, due to its associations with stress regulation (Dedovic et al., 2009).
·fMRI Paradigm
Results:
Whole-brain main effects of music listening at baseline (pre-stressor) showed superior temporal gyrus (STG) activity as expected. Main effects of music listening following the stressor revealed medial and lateral prefrontal cortex activation, particularly in the preschool and childhood music conditions. Whole-brain contrasts demonstrated heightened activation of the dorsal mPFC during both post-stressor preschool music relative to post-stressor adolescent music and post-stressor childhood music relative to post-stressor adolescent music. Contrasting post-stressor adolescent music against post-stressor childhood and preschool music combined confirmed heightened dorsal mPFC and right lateralized ACC activation for music from the earlier time periods, and heightened STG activation during the adolescent music condition (all results voxel-height and cluster-level FDR corrected at the p < 0.05 level). Linear mixed effects models on region-of-interest data from the ACC showed a main effect of developmental time period of music exposure during baseline music listening (F(2, 54) = 12.31, p < .001), with heightened ACC activation in preschool music compared to both adolescent music (b = -0.05, t(54) = -4.37, p < .001) and childhood music (b = -0.05, t(54) = -4.22, p < .001). Meanwhile, following the acute stressor, there was a main effect of developmental time period of music exposure on ACC activation (F(2, 54) = 7.47, p = .001), such that preschool music was associated with heightened ACC activation compared to adolescent music (b = -0.04, t(54) = -3.87, p < .001).
Conclusions:
Listening to music following an acute stressor engages the ACC, and this relationship is modulated by the time period of initial exposure of the music. These findings are consistent with the rodent literature, providing evidence for a sensitive period during the early developmental period (preschool and childhood) by which music shapes PFC function in response to stress.
Higher Cognitive Functions:
Music 1
Lifespan Development:
Early life, Adolescence, Aging 2
Keywords:
Development
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Plasticity
Other - Stress regulation
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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