Interest in the influence of musical training on executive functions (EFs) has been growing in recent years. However, the relationship between musical training and EFs remains unclear. By dividing EFs into inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility, this study systematically examined its association with musical training in children, and further verified whether there was a sensitive period for the influence of music training on EFs. In Experiment 1, musically trained and untrained children were asked to complete the Go/No-go, Stroop, Continuous Performance, and Switching tasks. Results showed that musically trained children had an advantage in attention inhibition, response inhibition, and working memory, but not in cognitive flexibility. Moreover, the level of musical training was positively correlated with response inhibition and working memory abilities. In Experiment 2, results showed that early-trained musicians performed better on measures of attention inhibition, response inhibition, and working memory than did the age-matched control group, but late-trained musicians only performed better in attention inhibition. Thus, our findings suggest that music training is associated with enhanced EF abilities and provide the first evidence that early childhood is a sensitive period when musical training has a more powerful effect on the development of EFs.

Nondeceptive placebo has demonstrated its efficiency in clinical practice. Although the underlying mechanisms are still unclear, nondeceptive placebo effect and nondeceptive nocebo effect may be mediated by expectation. To examine the extent to which expectation influences these effects, the present study compared nondeceptive placebo and nocebo effects with different expectation levels. Seventy-two healthy female participants underwent a standard conditioning procedure to establish placebo and nocebo effects. Sequentially, participants were randomized to one of the four experimental groups—baseline (BL), no expectation intervention (NoEI), expectation increasing (EI), and expectation decreasing (ED) groups, to receive either no intervention or interventions through different verbal suggestions that modulated their expectation. Placebo and nocebo effects were established in all four groups after the conditioning phase. However, after disclosing the placebo and nocebo, the analgesic and the hyperalgesic effects only persisted in the EI group, when compared with the BL group. Our results provide evidence highlighting the critical role of increased expectation in nondeceptive placebo and nocebo effects. The finding suggests that open-label placebo or nocebo per se might be insufficient to induce strong analgesic or hyperalgesic response and sheds insights into administrating open-label placebo and avoiding open-label nocebo in clinical practice.

Previous studies have widely shown that self-esteem modulates the attention bias towards social rejection or emotion-related information. However, little is known about the influences of self-esteem on attention bias towards self-relevant stimuli. We aimed to investigate neural correlates that underlie the modulation effect of self-esteem on self-relevant processing. Event-related potentials were recorded for subjects’ own names and close others’ names (the names of their friends) while subjects performed a three-stimulus oddball task. The results showed larger P2 amplitudes for one’s own name than for close-other’s name in the low self-esteem group, whereas this P2 effect were not observed in the high self-esteem group. In addition, one’s own name elicited equivalent N250 amplitudes and larger P3 amplitudes compared with close-other’s name in both high and low self-esteem groups. However, no interaction effects were observed between self-esteem and self-relevant processing in the N250 and P3 components. Thus, we found that the modulation effects of self-esteem on self-relevant processing occurred at the early P2 stage, but not at the later N250 and P3 stages. These findings reflect that individuals with low self-esteem demonstrate automatic attention towards their own names.

Although self–other behavioral differences in decision making under risk have been observed in some contexts, little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying such differences. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and the cups task, in which participants choose between risky and sure options for themselves and others in gain and loss situations, we found that people were more risk-taking when making decisions for themselves than for others in loss situations but were equally risk-averse in gain situations. Significantly stronger activations were observed in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and anterior insula (AI) when making decisions for the self than for others in loss situations but not in gain situations. Furthermore, the activation in the dmPFC was stronger when people made sure choices for others than for themselves in gain situations but not when they made risky choices, and was both stronger when people made sure and risky choices for themselves than for others in loss situations. These findings suggest that gain–loss situation modulates self–other differences in decision making under risk, and people are highly likely to differentiate the self from others when making decisions in loss situations.

Psychological and physical-self are two important aspects of self-concept. Although a growing number of behavioral and neuroimaging studies have investigated the cognitive mechanism and neural substrate underlying psychological and physical-self-representation, most of the existing research on psychological and physical-self-representation had been done in isolation. The present study aims to examine the electrophysiological responses to both psychological (one’s own name) and physical (one’s own voice) self-related stimuli in a uniform paradigm. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded for subjects’ own and others’ names uttered by subjects’ own or others’ voice (own voice-own name, own voice-other’s name, other’s voice-own name, other’s voice-other’s name) while subjects performed an auditory passive oddball task. The results showed that one’s own name elicited smaller P2 and larger P3 amplitudes than those of other’s names, irrespective of the voice identity. However, no differences were observed between self and other’s voice during the P2 and P3 stages. Moreover, an obvious interaction effect was observed between voice content and voice identity at the N400 stage that the subject’s own voice elicited a larger parietal N400 amplitude than other’s voice in other name condition but not in own name condition. Taken together, these findings suggested that psychological (one’s own name) and physical (one’s own voice) self-representation induced distinct electrophysiological response patterns in auditory-cognitive processing.

Long-term music training can improve sensorimotor skills, as playing a musical instrument requires the functional integration of information related to multimodal sensory perception and motor execution. This functional integration often leads to functional reorganization of cerebral cortices, including auditory, visual and motor areas. Moreover, music appreciation can modulate emotions (e.g., stress relief) and long-term music training can enhance a musician’s self-control and self-evaluation ability. Therefore, the neural processing of music can also be related to certain higher brain cognitive functions. However, evidence demonstrating that long-term music training modulates higher brain functions is surprisingly rare. Here, we aimed to comprehensively explore the neural changes induced by long-term music training by assessing the differences of transient and quasi-steady-state auditory-evoked potentials between nonmusicians and musicians. We observed that compared to nonmusicians, musicians have (1) larger high-frequency steady-state responses, which reflect the auditory information processing within the sensory system and (2) smaller low-frequency vertex potentials, which reflect higher cognitive information processing within the novelty/saliency detection system. Therefore, we speculate that long-term music training facilitates “bottom-up” auditory information processing in the sensory system and enhances “top-down” cognitive inhibition of the novelty/saliency detection system.