# Effect of short-term exposure to Raag Bilawal of North Indian classical music on young Indian adults: a high-density electroencephalogram microstate study

## TL;DR

This study examined how listening to North Indian classical music Raag Bilawal affects brain activity in young adults using EEG microstate analysis.

## Contribution

The study identified seven microstate maps, including three novel ones, during resting and music-listening states.

## Key findings

- No statistically significant differences were found in mean duration and time coverage of microstate maps between resting and music-listening conditions.
- Three novel microstate maps (map-1, map-4, map-7) were identified in both conditions.
- Both conditions showed similar stability and predominance of maps, suggesting activation of phonological, visual, and attention networks.

## Abstract

the objective of the study was to find out the microstate map topographies and their parameters generated during the resting state and during listening to North Indian classical Music Raag 'the Raag Bilawal'. It was hypothesized that in the resting state and during listening to music conditions, there would be a difference in microstate parameters i.e. mean duration, global explained variance (GEV), and time coverage.

a 128-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded for 12 Indian subjects (average age 26.1+1.4 years) while resting and listening to music using the EEG microstate investigation. Investigation and comparison of the microstate parameters were the mean duration, global explained variance (GEV), and time coverage between both conditions were performed.

seven microstate maps were found to represent the resting state and listening to music condition, four canonical and three novel maps. No statistically significant difference was found between the two conditions for time coverage and mean duration. The statistical significance levels of the map-1, map-2, map-3, map-4, map-5, map-6, and map-7 for the mean duration were 0.4, 0.6, 0.97, 0.34, 0.32, 0.69, and 0.29 respectively; and for time coverage were 0.92, 0.92, 0.96, 0.64, 0.78, 0.38, and 0.76 respectively. Map-1, map-4, and map-7 were the three novel maps we found in our study.

similarities regarding stability and predominance of maps with small vulnerability exist in both conditions indicating that phonological, visual, and dorsal attention networks may be activated in both resting state and listening to music condition.