However, in one study perceptual learning decreased the slope of the function relating BOLD to pitch-interval size in microtonal stimuli (Zatorre et al., in press). Such specific reduction to a particular feature suggests ABT-263 that the outcome of learning

under some circumstances may be that fewer neuronal units are needed to encode a given level of information, as also suggested for visual perceptual learning (Yotsumoto et al., 2008). Findings of specific adaptations within a sensory system raise the question of the behavioral relevance and transfer to other, related tasks. However, pitch discrimination training for instance does not necessarily lead to improved vocal performance or associated neural changes (Zarate et al., 2010). Thus, transfer from sensory to motor domains cannot be assumed. It is important then to ask how active musical training that involves producing sound influences sensory responses and more generally what its effects are on the entire sensory-motor system. Several recent studies have looked at training that involves actively playing a musical instrument and that therefore

involves the sensorimotor system in addition to the auditory system. Many studies on the effects of instrumental musical training are cross-sectional in nature, comparing groups of musicians Afatinib order and nonmusicians; since here we are mostly interested in training studies, we will emphasize those that pertain most to the results of later training studies. For example, musicians show enlarged auditory cortical evoked potentials to piano tones (Pantev et al., 1998), and this effect can be additionally modulated according to the timbre of their own musical instrument (Pantev et al.,

2001), much especially in the right auditory cortex (Shahin et al., 2003). Complementary fMRI findings were reported when comparing violinists and flutists (Margulis et al., 2009), where an experience-specific network encompassed auditory associations areas related to timbre processing, and also precentral and inferior frontal areas involved in auditory-motor interactions and in musical syntax processing, respectively. More recently, instrument-specific tuning has been demonstrated as early as the brainstem level (Strait et al., 2012). Such instrument-specific effects provide good evidence for experience-dependent plasticity. The effects of experience have been tested more directly in longitudinal studies that followed children taking instrumental lessons with the Suzuki method. The Suzuki method is particularly suited for systematic studies because it is standardized, because no preselection of students based on inherent talent takes place, and because the training focuses on playing by ear and learning by imitation. Although some studies have not provided conclusive proof for specific training effects in evoked electrical responses (Shahin et al.