Does musical training affect neuro-cognition of emotions? An EEG study with instrumental Indian classical music

Music across all genres evokes a variety of emotions, irrespective of its timbre and tempo. Indian classical music (ICM) is no exception. Although being biased towards vocal musical styles, instrumental music forms one broad section of ICM. In this study, we have tried to compare the neural responses of music practitioners and non-musicians towards different emotions using audio clips from two popular plucked string instruments used in ICM, Sitar and Sarod. From pre-recorded performances of two eminent maestros, 20 clips of approximately 30 s duration were selected from the Alaap sections (initial introductory section without any rhythmic accompaniment) of different Raagas played in the two instruments. From an audience response assessment of 100 participants, a total of eight clips having maximum arousal for happy and sad emotions were identified from the 20 clips, using which EEG (Electroencephalography) recordings were collected from five musicians and five non-musicians. Robust nonlinear Multifractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis technique (MFDFA) was applied to quantitatively measure the brain-state changes in different lobes for both categories of participants. In essence, this study attempts to encapsulate if and how prior musical training influences the brain responses towards two basic musical emotions in ICM using two instruments of same family.