Due to the extremely high quantity of motoric stimuli, the long time span one is exposed to this stimuli and the multimodality in the learning process of playing an instrument, professional musicians are an ideal group to study the principles of neuroplasticity in vivo. Studies could document different regions of the brain of musicians that show structural differences to the average population. In the brain of string instrument players e.g. you can see the so called „Omega-Sign“: an enlargement of the primary motor cortex of the right hemisphere in the area which is important for the movement of the left hand. In Pianists the „Omega-Sign“ could be showen on both hemispheres.

The idea of a time period in the maturation of neural networks of special susceptibility for strucutral changes plays an important role in plasticity research. Does the timepoint at which one is exposed to a certain stimulus matter for the shaping of the brain? Is it possible to define such a phase in the maturation of the brain in pianists?

• reproduce previous findings in plasticity research
• try to define the matter of age on the placticity of certain neuronal structures

• Eckart Altenmüller
• Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells
• Bahram Mohammadi
• Nuria Rojo
• Karl Hartmann
• Lucía Vaquero

• This project is still in the data analysis phase