Functional Brain Connectivity and Musical Training: Insights from EEG Phase Synchronization during Music Perception

Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 2025. Vol. 95. No. 6. P. 963–970.

A. Radygina, S. Kulikova

Musical training has a significant impact on brain organization, leading to functional and structural
adaptations that enhance auditory, visual, motor, and cognitive processes. This study investigates how
extensive musical training shapes functional brain connectivity by comparing professional musicians and
non-musicians. Using EEG phase-locking value (PLV) analysis, we examined neural synchronization across
alpha, beta, and gamma frequency ranges during music perception in tasks with different forms of musical
graphic notation. Our results have shown that musicians demonstrated significantly enhanced functional
connectivity, reflecting a superior ability to integrate auditory, visual, and cognitive information. Specifically,
in the alpha band, musicians showed strong occipital-temporal connectivity across all tasks, with additional
parietal-temporal synchronization during tasks lacking pitch information. Analysis of the beta band activity
revealed significant frontal-temporal connectivity, indicative of enhanced cognitive processing, and task-specific
temporal-occipital synchronization. In the gamma band, musicians exhibited robust frontal-temporal
and frontal-frontal synchronization, associated with advanced emotional and structural music processing. In
contrast, non-musicians displayed reduced, less specialized connectivity patterns, relying on more generalized
cognitive strategies. These findings provide clear evidence that musical training induces profound functional
adaptations in the brain. The enhanced and more efficient cross-regional synchronization in musicians
underscores the role of long-term training in fostering advanced multimodal integration and cognitive flexibility,
which facilitates sophisticated music perception and analysis.

Keywords: музыка, связность, music, восприятие, когнитивные процессы, perception, EEG, ЭЭГ, cognitive processes, интеграция информации, information integration, connectivity

Publication based on the results of: Strategic behavior of companies and individuals under conditions of technological transformation in Russia (2025)