Clara E. JamesUniversity of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland · Haute Ecole de Santé Genève
Clara E. James
PhD in neurosciences
About
45
Publications
6,292
Reads
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639
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
RESEARCH INTERESTS: 1 Experience-driven brain and behavioral plasticity following musical or other non-invasive interventions 2 Links between general and musical cognition and their neuronal substrates 3 Developing musical training regimens that: a Countervail age-induced cognitive and sensorimotor decline and brain degeneration & b Boost cognitive, sensorimotor and associated brain development in normally developing and high-risk children
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DzgNkpsAAAAJ
Additional affiliations
September 2017 - present
August 2013 - present
Position
- Privat Docent
Description
- Teaching “Neuropsychology of music” at Master’s level; Supervising Masters’s theses.
May 2012 - present
Position
- Professor
Description
- Organization and coaching of applied research and development in different domains of health care and their intersections. Applied cognitive neuroscience in the domain of brain plasticity and healthy ageing.
Publications
Publications (45)
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we show for the first time that levels of musical expertise stepwise modulate higher order brain functioning. This suggests that degree of training intensity drives such cerebral plasticity. Participants (non-musicians, amateurs, and expert musicians) listened to a comprehensive set of specifically compo...
As a functional homolog for left-hemispheric syntax processing in language, neuroimaging studies evidenced involvement of right prefrontal regions in musical syntax processing, of which underlying white matter connectivity remains unexplored so far. In the current experiment, we investigated the underlying pathway architecture in subjects with 3 le...
This original research focused on the effect of musical training intensity on cerebral and behavioral processing of complex music using high-density event-related potential (ERP) approaches. Recently we have been able to show progressive changes with training in gray and white matter, and higher order brain functioning using (f)MRI [(functional) Ma...
True absolute pitch (AP), labeling of pitches with semitone precision without a reference, is classically studied using isolated tones. However, AP is acquired and has its function within complex dynamic musical contexts. Here we examined event-related brain responses and underlying cerebral sources to short expressive string quartets, investigatin...
This cluster randomized controlled trial provides evidence that focused musical instrumental practice, in comparison to traditional sensitization to music, provokes multiple transfer effects in the cognitive and sensorimotor domain. Over the last 2 years of primary school (10–12 years old), 69 children received group music instruction by profession...
Background
Regular cognitive training can boost or maintain cognitive and brain functions known to decline with age. Most studies administered such cognitive training on a computer and in a lab setting. However, everyday life activities, like musical practice or physical exercise that are complex and variable, might be more successful at inducing t...
Morphological differences in the auditory brain of musicians compared to nonmusicians are often associated with life‐long musical activity. Cross‐sectional studies, however, do not allow for any causal inferences, and most experimental studies testing music‐driven adaptations investigated children. Although the importance of the age at which musica...
While aging is characterized by neurodegeneration, musical training is associated with experience-driven brain plasticity and protection against age-related cognitive decline. However, evidence for the positive effects of musical training mostly comes from cross-sectional studies while randomized controlled trials with larger sample sizes are rare....
Understanding speech in background noise poses a challenge in daily communication, which is a particular problem among the elderly. Although musical expertise has often been suggested to be a contributor to speech intelligibility, the associations are mostly correlative. In the present multisite study conducted in Germany and Switzerland, 156 healt...
Whereas a growing corpus of research has investigated the impact of music practice on several domains of cognition, studies on the relationships between musicality and other abilities and skills in musically untrained children are scarce. The present study examined the associations between musicality, cognition, and sensorimotor skills in 69 musica...
Background
Recent data suggest that musical practice prevents age-related cognitive decline. But experimental evidence remains sparse and no concise information on the neurophysiological bases exists, although cognitive decline represents a major impediment to healthy aging. A challenge in the field of aging is developing training regimens that sti...
Motor skills tend to deteriorate with age, due to muscular wasting, degradation of sensory organs, for example, vision impairment, and changes in the biomechanics of fibrous tissues, joints, and tendons with resulting stiffness. Physiological age-related apoptosis and neurodegeneration of sensory–motor systems induce numerous degradations of neurob...
Subtle transgression of closure (Tsub, degree I6).
Apparent transgression of closure (Tapp, degree IV6).
Sensorimotor synchronization (SMS) requires aligning motor actions to external events and represents a core part of both musical and dance performances. In the current study, to isolate the brain mechanisms involved in synchronizing finger tapping with a musical beat, we compared SMS to pure self-paced finger tapping and listen-only conditions at d...
Processing western tonal music may yield distinct brain responses depending on the mode of the musical compositions. Although subjective feelings in response to major and minor mode are well described, the underlying brain mechanisms and their development with increasing expertise have not been thoroughly examined. Using high-density electroencepha...
SUPPLEMENTARY FIGURE Supplementary Figure: White matter integrity for MTG_POp as measured by the microstructural properties fractional anisotropy (FA), radial diffusity (RD) and longitudinal diffusity (LD) for both tract subvolumes (tract_core and tract_dispersion). Experts and Amateurs show a significant difference of FA (better tract integrity) i...
This study investigated functional MRI (fMRI) cerebral correlates of beat- and duration-based sensorimotor synchronization (SMS). We developed an original paradigm to compare SMS in beat-based versus duration-based contexts. In the beat-based conditions, participants synchronized finger taps with a regular beat. The condition had either metrical or...
The majority of studies on music processing in children used simple musical stimuli. Here, primaryschoolchildren judged the appropriateness of musical closure in expressive polyphone music, whilehigh-density electroencephalography was recorded. Stimuli ended either regularly or contained refined in-keyharmonic transgressions at closure. The childre...
The majority of studies on music processing in children used simple musical stimuli. Here, primary schoolchildren judged the appropriateness of musical closure in expressive polyphone music, while high-density electroencephalography was recorded. Stimuli ended either regularly or contained refined in-key harmonic transgressions at closure. The chil...
Using optimized voxel-based morphometry, we performed grey matter density analyses on 59 age-, sex- and intelligence-matched young adults with three distinct, progressive levels of musical training intensity or expertise. Structural brain adaptations in musicians have been repeatedly demonstrated in areas involved in auditory perception and motor s...
Recently, age-related hippocampal (HP) volume loss could be associated with a decrease in general fluid intelligence (gF). In the present study we investigated whether and how extensive musical training modulates human HP volume and gF performance. Previously, some studies demonstrated positive effects of musical training on higher cognitive functi...
Using optimized voxel-based morphometry, we performed grey matter density analyses on 59 age-, sex- and intelligence-matched young adults with three distinct, progressive levels of musical training intensity or expertise. Structural brain adaptations in musicians have been repeatedly demonstrated in areas involved in auditory perception and motor s...
Recently, age-related hippocampal (HP) volume loss could be associated with a decrease in general fluid intelligence (gF). In the present study we investigated whether and how extensive musical training modulates human HP volume and gF performance. Previously, some studies demonstrated positive effects of musical training on higher cognitive functi...
To examine how musical expertise tunes the brain to subtle metric anomalies in an ecological musical context, we presented piano compositions ending on standard and deviant cadences (endings) to expert pianists and musical laymen, while high-density EEG was recorded. Temporal expectancies were manipulated by substituting standard "masculine" cadenc...
In Western tonal music, musical phrases end with an explicit, highly expected, harmonic consequent. Primary school children were exposed to musical stimuli at two levels of complexity: children's songs and polyphonic piano pieces. The endings ( cadences) of all stimuli were either congruous or contained subtle or marked syntax violations, resulting...
This study investigated behavioural and electro-cortical reorganizations accompanying intentional switching between two distinct bimanual coordination tapping modes (In-phase and Anti-phase) that differ in stability when produced at the same movement rate. We expected that switching to a less stable tapping mode (In-to-Anti switching) would lead to...
Recent studies indicated that the human medial temporal lobe (MTL) may not only be important for long-term memory consolidation but also for certain forms of short-term memory. In this study, we explored the interplay between short- and long-term memory using high-density event-related potentials. We found that pictures immediately repeated after a...
In western tonal music, musical phrases end with an explicit harmonic consequent which is highly expected. As such expectation is a consequence of musical background, cerebral processing of incongruities of musical grammar might be a function of expertise. We hypothesized that a subtle incongruity of standard closure should evoke a profound and rap...
Little is known about the initial stages of information processing in amnesia as compared to normal memory. In this study, we used electrical spatiotemporal mapping to compare cortical activation during encoding and recognition in a 56-year-old patient with severe, chronic post-anoxic amnesia and an age-matched control group. Event-related potentia...
Projects
Projects (6)
This exploratory study aims to determine if 2 specifically developed innovative behavioral non-medical interventions over 6 months, i.e. intensive musical practice and psychomotor interventions in small groups may have an important societal impact, via the reduction or stabilization of cognitive, sensorimotor and cerebral decline, as compared to the control group, in non-amnesic MCI patients without neurobiological markers of Alzheimer's disease
This longitudinal study aims to countervail age-related cognitive and cerebral decline in healthy retired people through intensive piano / keyboard music practice in Switzerland and Germany. The control group will receive recreational music lessons without practice. Using a comprehensive battery of behavioral tests and cutting-edge neuroimaging we will evaluate cognitive and sensorimotor functioning, as well as brain structure and function, before, during and after the intervention, which will last 12 months.
Investigating cortical processing in normal memory and amnesia
