Research report Playing piano in the mind—an fMRI study on music imagery and performance in pianists I.G. Meister a, * , T. Krings b , H. Foltys a , B. Boroojerdi a , M. Mu ¨ller a , R. To ¨pper a , A. Thron b a Department of Neurology, University Hospital Aachen, Pauwelsstrasse 30, D-52074 Aachen, Germany b Department of Neuroradiology, University Hospital Aachen, 52057 Aachen, Germany Accepted 19 December 2003 Abstract Reading of musical notes and playing piano is a very complex motor task which requires years of practice. In addition to motor skills, rapid and effective visuomotor transformation as well as processing of the different components of music like pitch, rhythm and musical texture are involved. The aim of the present study was the investigation of the cortical network which mediates music performance compared to music imagery in 12 music academy students playing the right hand part of a Bartok piece using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In both conditions, fMRI activations of a bilateral frontoparietal network comprising the premotor areas, the precuneus and the medial part of Brodmann Area 40 were found. During music performance but not during imagery the contralateral primary motor cortex and posterior parietal cortex (PPC) bilaterally was active. This reflects the role of primary motor cortex for motor execution but not imagery and the higher visuomotor integration requirements during music performance compared to simulation. The notion that the same areas are involved in visuomotor transformation/motor planning and music processing emphasizes the multimodal properties of cortical areas involved in music and motor imagery in musicians. D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Theme: Neural basis of behavior, Topic: Cognition Keywords: fMRI; Music performance; Music imagery; Visuomotor integration 1. Introduction Playing a music instrument is among the most complex of motor tasks [20]. The player has to integrate high-speed sequential hand movements into a rhythmic and expressive context. An additional requirement of music performance is notereading. Notereading comprises the translation from the visual spatial domain to a representation which provides the information for a program specifying the patterning, timing and positioning of finger movements [32]. The use of functional imaging has allowed insights into the processing of music processing in the brain. Musical performance has been investigated by a number of studies concerning the programming of motor action, the generation of rhythm and the integration of the musical syntax into an individual interpretation of music [15,17,20,29,33]. The programming of movements predominantly involves the supplementary motor (SMA) and premotor areas [5,31], whereas rhythmic patterns are generated by a frontoparietal network [27]. In professional piano players, there are learn- ing-related changes in cerebral motor representation; thus it was found that professional piano players show less cerebral activation in premotor and motor areas when compared to non-musicians performing the same movement [9,14]. It is known that professional musicians not only rehearse their musical skills by daily practice, but use additional strategies of mental imagery of music performance. For example, Horowitz practiced mentally before playing in concerts in order to avoid the feedback of a piano other than his own. Rubinstein did so in order to efficiate daily practice [30]. The neural correlate of mental rehearsal and music performance in pianists which underwent a yearlong train- ing of the combination of motor skills and music processing 0926-6410/$ - see front matter D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2003.12.005 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +49-241-8089630; fax: +49-241- 8082444. E-mail address: igmeister@gmx.de (I.G. Meister). www.elsevier.com/locate/cogbrainres Cognitive Brain Research 19 (2004) 219 – 228