Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Our journals
    • Clinical Medicine
    • Future Healthcare Journal
  • Subject collections
  • About the RCP
  • Contact us

Clinical Medicine Journal

  • ClinMed Home
  • Content
    • Current
    • Ahead of print
    • Archive
  • Author guidance
    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit online
  • About ClinMed
    • Scope
    • Editorial board
    • Policies
    • Information for reviewers
    • Advertising

User menu

  • Log in

Search

  • Advanced search
RCP Journals
Home
  • Log in
  • Home
  • Our journals
    • Clinical Medicine
    • Future Healthcare Journal
  • Subject collections
  • About the RCP
  • Contact us
Advanced

Clinical Medicine Journal

clinmedicine Logo
  • ClinMed Home
  • Content
    • Current
    • Ahead of print
    • Archive
  • Author guidance
    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit online
  • About ClinMed
    • Scope
    • Editorial board
    • Policies
    • Information for reviewers
    • Advertising

Tone deafness: a model complex cortical phenotype

Timothy D Griffiths
Download PDF
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7861/clinmedicine.8-6-592
Clin Med December 2008
Timothy D Griffiths
Newcastle University
Roles: Professor of Cognitive Neurology
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Info & Metrics
Loading

Abstract

We all know people with tone deafness: these are the people who get thrown out of the choir at school. Although tone deafness is recognised as an output disorder, recent studies have characterised it as one of music perception in the absence of deafness or any associated cognitive disorder. The disorder can therefore be characterised as a form of auditory agnosia. This article considers how the phenotype might be deconstructed to the level of a causal deficit in the perception of pitch pattern. Based on our evolving understanding of the normal brain bases for this process a cortical deficit beyond primary cortex would be predicted. In tone deafness, structural cortical variations have been demonstrated by recent studies that detect subtle changes in the cortical mantle and underlying white matter: these changes are within a right hemisphere network for pitch pattern analysis and working memory for pitch. Studies of multiply affected families are underway to see if the disruption of this network can be caused by single genes. This disorder therefore offers the opportunity to study how a complex phenotype can be characterised as a cortical perceptual disorder potentially explained by a single gene or molecule. Although tone deafness is not pernicious, the underlying abnormality may prove to be a disorder of cortical connectivity that provides a model for disorders that are more so, such as schizophrenia.

Key Words
  • auditory agnosia
  • cerebral cortex
  • genetics
  • phenotype
  • tone deafness
  • © 2008 Royal College of Physicians
Back to top
Previous articleNext article

Article Tools

Download PDF
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Citation Tools
Tone deafness
Timothy D Griffiths
Clinical Medicine Dec 2008, 8 (6) 592-595; DOI: 10.7861/clinmedicine.8-6-592

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Share
Tone deafness
Timothy D Griffiths
Clinical Medicine Dec 2008, 8 (6) 592-595; DOI: 10.7861/clinmedicine.8-6-592
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
  • Info & Metrics

Related Articles

  • No related articles found.
  • PubMed
  • Google Scholar

Cited By...

  • No citing articles found.
  • Google Scholar

More in this TOC Section

  • Music and madness
  • Neurology of musical performance
Show more Medicine, Music and the Mind

Similar Articles

FAQs

  • Difficulty logging in.

There is currently no login required to access the journals. Please go to the home page and simply click on the edition that you wish to read. If you are still unable to access the content you require, please let us know through the 'Contact us' page.

  • Can't find the CME questionnaire.

The read-only self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ) can be found after the CME section in each edition of Clinical Medicine. RCP members and fellows (using their login details for the main RCP website) are able to access the full SAQ with answers and are awarded 2 CPD points upon successful (8/10) completion from:  https://cme.rcplondon.ac.uk

Navigate this Journal

  • Journal Home
  • Current Issue
  • Ahead of Print
  • Archive

Related Links

  • ClinMed - Home
  • FHJ - Home
clinmedicine Footer Logo
  • Home
  • Journals
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
HighWire Press, Inc.

Follow Us:

  • Follow HighWire Origins on Twitter
  • Visit HighWire Origins on Facebook

Copyright © 2021 by the Royal College of Physicians