Music recognition in frontotemporal lobar degeneration and Alzheimer disease
Article [Version of Record]
Is part of
Cognitive and behavioral neurology ; vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 74-84.Publisher(s)
Lippincott, Williams & WilkinsAuthor(s)
Keywords
Abstract(s)
Objective—To compare music recognition in patients with frontotemporal dementia, semantic
dementia, Alzheimer disease, and controls and to evaluate the relationship between music
recognition and brain volume.
Background—Recognition of familiar music depends on several levels of processing. There are
few studies about how patients with dementia recognize familiar music.
Methods—Subjects were administered tasks that assess pitch and melody discrimination,
detection of pitch errors in familiar melodies, and naming of familiar melodies.
Results—There were no group differences on pitch and melody discrimination tasks. However,
patients with semantic dementia had considerable difficulty naming familiar melodies and also
scored the lowest when asked to identify pitch errors in the same melodies. Naming familiar
melodies, but not other music tasks, was strongly related to measures of semantic memory. Voxelbased morphometry analysis of brain MRI showed that difficulty in naming songs was associated
with the bilateral temporal lobes and inferior frontal gyrus, whereas difficulty in identifying pitch
errors in familiar melodies correlated with primarily the right temporal lobe.
Conclusions—The results support a view that the anterior temporal lobes play a role in familiar
melody recognition, and that musical functions are affected differentially across forms of
dementia.
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