Music Modulates Medial Temporal Lobe Connectivity with Frontostriatal Loops and Enhances Visual Sequential Learning

How music can benefit concurrent learning of other modalities remains debated. This study aimed to investigate whether and how musical schemas improve parallel visual sequence encoding. During fMRI, participants learned sequences of abstract shapes that were presented along with concurrent musical segments that varied in predictability through both structural regularity and prior learning. Behavioral results show that music, particularly when predictable and schematic, enhances visual sequential encoding. fMRI data indicate that parahippocampal and striatal engagement during visual sequence encoding is decreased with music, suggesting more efficient encoding when music is present. Importantly, music increased prefrontal-medial temporal lobe connectivity during visual encoding, a network highly associated with schema interactions with new learning. We also demonstrate improved encoding as a function of the syntactical schema of music, which was associated with increased functional connectivity between the striatum and the hippocampus, a critical network for sequence learning. We propose that music with certain forms of predictability may aid parallel visual temporal order learning by reducing neural encoding demands and providing schematic temporal structure that strengthens the connectivity between the medial temporal lobe and frontostriatal loops.