Differential changes in motor cortex excitability during speaking and singing

Objectives: Several components of the network underlying speech motor control exhibit a predominantly left-sided hemodynamic response in neuroimaging. Alongside spoken language, singing represents a second mode of auditory-vocal communication which, conceivably, evolved as a transitional state between subhuman primate vocalizations and speech. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) provides an useful tool to assess the hemispheric lateralization of language and singing processes and their functional connections to motor areas. Using TMS, the excitability of the motor hand area has been found to be increased in…