One violin lesson changes brain waves

To conduct such a study for the first time, the team used OPM‑MEG — a new type of scanner developed in Nottingham. It is built into a lightweight helmet with a control unit in the form of a backpack and allows measuring the brain’s electrical signals and describing its operation while a person performs tasks that are natural for everyday life.

The researchers recorded brain waves — rhythmic changes in the electrical activity of groups of neurons — and monitored how they changed while playing the violin. One of the предполагаемых functions of such oscillations, particularly in the “beta” frequency range, is to signal whether our actions lead to the expected result. “The brain works by making predictions about what will happen as a result of your actions. If I play the violin, the brain expects a certain sound. If I hit the expected note, the brain receives a signal that the result matches the prediction; if the note is unexpected, it means it doesn’t match.” In this experiment, we were able to measure these signals in real time while the person was playing the instrument,” explains Joe Gibson, a graduate student at the School of Physics and Astronomy.

Something else is also interesting: the participants whose beta waves changed the most before and after the lesson also showed the greatest progress in playing. For the scanner to work—which detects very weak magnetic fields from the brain’s electrical activity—the instrument had to be completely free of metal. A local violinist and craftsman, Alan Kirby, came to the scientists’ aid: he took an ordinary violin and replaced all the metal parts with hand‑made ones, resulting in a completely wooden instrument with the tuning frequencies of the Baroque era. “It was amazing to combine the ancient art of violin‑making with the quantum physics that underlies this brain scanner,” Kirby said. “Even more impressive was seeing how my lessons had an impact on people’s brains. It was a special experience.”

Twenty‑two aspiring musicians participated in the study. The OPM-MEG data were recorded during two scanning sessions, during which the participants attempted to play a melody. First, they watched a video in which Kirby played “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”; then, in the first session, they tried to play the same melody on the violin while their brain activity was recorded. After that, there was a lesson with Kirby, followed by a second scanning session, identical to the first: the participants played the melody again, and their brain activity was measured once more.

Matthew Brooks, a professor who led the development of OPM-MEG in Nottingham for over ten years, noted that this work required a unique combination of competencies: physics to measure brain activity, engineering design for an ergonomic wearable scanner, mathematics to model signals, and, of course, Alan’s knowledge and skill as a violinist and master. “Without this diversity of talents, we simply wouldn’t have been able to do this work.”

“The results deepen our understanding of motor learning,” he added. — It’s also noteworthy that some of the effects we measured are those that can be influenced by disorders such as dementia. I hope such research will lead to a new understanding not only of healthy brain function but also of diseases.