Musicians with absolute pitch show distinct neural activities in the auditory cortex.

Meg responses from musicians who had absolute pitch and from non-musicians were measured while they received different auditory stimuli. The parameters of single equivalent current dipoles (ECDs) were calculated for the N1m responses occurring in the auditory cortex. The location of the ECD for the noise burst was significantly posterior to the ECDs for the tones in the two hemispheres of the musicians, but not for those of the non-musicians. Further, in the left hemisphere the ECDs for the musicians were significantly posterior to those for the non-musicians. These results suggest distinct neural activities in the auditory cortex of musicians, which may be the result of cortical plasticity produced by training and/or an inherent cortical structural specificity.