PhD Student: George Arthur; Partner: Parkinsons UK; Supervisors: Dr. Maria Witek and Dr. Ned Jenkinson; School: Department of Music.
When listening to musical rhythm, individuals sometimes experience the pleasurable and spontaneous urge to move. This phenomenon is shared across cultures, is experienced in early childhood, and is spared in people with dementia. Hence, the pleasurable urge to move to music, often referred to as groove, appears to be a universal byproduct of listening to musical rhythms. According to the literature, rhythms of moderate complexity evoke a stronger sensation of groove relative to rhythms with low or high complexity. Nonetheless, whilst the relationship between groove and rhythmic complexity is well established, the relationship between groove, pleasure, and physical movement ispoorly understood. For instance, does a moderate level of rhythmic uncertainty evoke movement which is pleasurable, or does rhythmic uncertainty generate pleasure, which in-turn evokes physical movement?
This project will employ an interdisciplinary, experimental approach with the aim of uncovering the precise relationship between groove, pleasure, and movement. This relationship will be examined in healthy participants and in participants with compromised rhythm perception such as people with Parkinson’s (PwPs). In Parkinson’s disease, basal ganglia degradation in the brain impairs dopamine signaling which compromises both rhythm perception and an individual’s perceptual experience of pleasure. Nonetheless, it is already known that PwPs sometimes use music as an external cue to help entrain daily movements to the beat of a rhythm e.g., synchronizing gait to the pulse of marching music. Mechanistically, it is therefore postulated that musical cues bypass the basal ganglia circuitry damaged by Parkinson’s disease, compensating for problems in movement initiation often experienced by PwPs.
However, despite the potential benefits of listening to musical rhythms in PwPs, experimental research examining rhythm perception, and the interplay between movement and pleasure in PwPs is currently lacking. Hence, exploring groove perception in PwPs will help uncover whether the relationship between movement and pleasure in musical groove is modulated when rhythm perception is compromised. This will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the interplay between rhythm, groove, pleasure, movement, and musical engagement in general, as well as providing a more objective explanation for how and why rhythmic stimuli are of therapeutic benefit to PwPs.
This project will therefore employ experimental methods across musicology, cognitive neuroscience, movement analysis, neurorehabilitation, computational modelling, and participatory action research to gain a novel neurophenomenological understanding of musical groove. This will incorporate understanding groove both on a subjective participant centered level e.g., through qualitative surveying, as well as on an objective neurophysiological level. For instance, investigating both the neural signatures of groove e.g., measuring corticomotor excitability using transcranial magnetic stimulation, and its physiological markers, e.g., dopamine function. In addition, aspects of the research project will be guided by PwPs, with the objective that their experiences and relationship with music in their day to day lives will guide the implementation of more targeted music interventions for treating symptoms associated with their condition, as well as other movement disorders that may be influenced by listening to musical rhythms.