Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id BAA24069 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 24 Mar 2001 01:49:04 GMT Subject: Fwd: Music on the brain Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 20:45:27 -0500 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas Est Veritas From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "Memetics Discussion List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Message-ID: <20010324014527.AAA29582@camailp.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.160]> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Music on the brain:
Researchers explore the biology of music
By William J. Cromie
Gazette Staff
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2001/03.22/04-music.html
Babies come into the world with musical preferences. They begin to
respond to music while still in the womb. At the age of 4 months,
dissonant notes at the end of a melody will cause them to squirm and turn
away. If they like a tune, they may coo.
Scientists cite such responses as evidence that certain rules for music
are wired into the brain, and musicians violate them at the risk of
making their audiences squirm. Even the Smashing Pumpkins, a hard-rock
group, play by some of the same rules of harmony that Johann Sebastian
Bach did in the 18th century.
"Music is in our genes," says Mark Jude Tramo, a musician, prolific
songwriter, and neuroscientist at the Harvard Medical School. "Many
researchers like myself are trying to understand melody, harmony, rhythm,
and the feelings they produce, at the level of individual brain cells. At
this level, there may be a universal set of rules that governs how a
limited number of sounds can be combined in an infinite number of ways."
"All humans come into the world with an innate capability for music,"
agrees Kay Shelemay, professor of music at Harvard. "At a very early age,
this capability is shaped by the music system of the culture in which a
child is raised. That culture affects the construction of instruments,
the way people sound when they sing, and even the way they hear sound. By
combining research on what goes on in the brain with a cultural
understanding of music, I expect we'll learn a lot more than we would by
either approach alone."
Besides increasing basic understanding, Tramo believes that studying the
biology of music can lead to practical applications related to learning,
deafness, and personal improvement. For example, there's evidence that
music can help lower blood pressure and ease pain.
Looking for a music center
A human brain is divided into two hemispheres, and the right hemisphere
has been traditionally identified as the seat of music appreciation.
However, no one has found a "music center" there, or anywhere else.
Studies of musical understanding in people who have damage to either
hemisphere, as well as brain scans of people taken while listening to
tunes, reveal that music perception emerges from the interplay of
activity in both sides of the brain.
Some brain circuits respond specifically to music; but, as you would
expect, parts of these circuits participate in other forms of sound
processing. For example, the region of the brain dedicated to perfect
pitch is also involved in speech perception.
Music and other sounds entering the ears go to the auditory cortex,
assemblages of cells just above both ears. The right side of the cortex
is crucial for perceiving pitch as well as certain aspects of melody,
harmony, timbre, and rhythm. (All the people tested were right-handed, so
brain preferences may differ in lefties.)
The left side of the brain in most people excels at processing rapid
changes in frequency and intensity, both in music and words. Such rapid
changes occur when someone plucks a violin string versus running a bow
across it.
Both left and right sides are necessary for complete perception of
rhythm. For example, both hemispheres need to be working to tell the
difference between three-quarter and four-quarter time.
The front part of your brain (frontal cortex), where working memories are
stored, also plays a role in rhythm and melody perception.
"It's not clear what, if any, part these hearing centers play in
'feeling' music," Tramo notes. "Other areas of the brain deal with
emotion and pleasure. There is a great deal of effort going on to map
connections between the auditory cortex and parts of the brain that
participate in emotion."
Researchers have found activity in brain regions that control movement
even when people just listen to music without moving any parts of their
bodies. "If you're just thinking about tapping out a rhythm, parts of the
motor system in your brain light up," Tramo notes.
"Music is as inherently motor as it is auditory," he continues. "Many of
us 'conduct' while listening to classical music, hum along with show
tunes, or dance to popular music. Add the contributions of facial
expressions, stage lights, and emotions, and you appreciate the
complexity of what our brain puts together while we listen and interact
with music in a concert hall or mosh pit."
Practical applications
Understanding the biology of music could allow people to use it better in
medical and other areas where evidence indicates music produces benefits
beyond entertainment.
Following heart bypass surgery, patients often experience erratic changes
in blood pressure. Such changes are treated with drugs. Studies show that
those in intensive care units where background music is played need lower
doses of these drugs compared with patients in units where no music is
played.
Scientists and medical doctors are investigating the value of musiclike
games to aid dyslexics. When dyslexics play a game that calls for
responses to tones that come very fast, it reportedly helps them to read
better. "The approach is controversial," Tramo admits, "but there's
enough favorable evidence for researchers to continue testing it."
Some hospitals play soft background music in intensive care units for
premature babies. Researchers have found that such music, as well as a
nurse's or mother's humming, helps babies to gain weight faster and to
leave the unit earlier than premies who don't hear these sounds.
On the other end of the age scale, music has been used to calm
Alzheimer's patients. At mealtime in nursing homes or hospitals these
people may be difficult to organize. Fights even occur. The right kind of
music, it has been demonstrated, reduces confusion and disagreements.
Investigators have also found that music lowers blood pressure in certain
situations, and it seems to increase the efficiency of oxygen consumption
by the heart. "One study showed that the heart muscle of people
exercising on treadmills didn't work as hard when people listened to
music as it did when they exercised in silence," Tramo notes.
Then there are endless anecdotes about athletes using music to enhance
their performance. Pitcher Trevor Hoffman of the San Diego Padres, for
example, listens to AC/DC to get psyched up in a game. Tramo ran to
"Brown Sugar" by the Rolling Stones when he won a gold medal in the
100-yard dash in high school. To determine how much difference music
makes, however, the performance of an athlete who listens to music would
have to be compared with that in games when he or she didn't listen.
Tramo believes that music and dancing preceded language. Archaeologists
have discovered flutes made from animal bones by Neanderthals living in
Eastern Europe more than 50,000 years ago. No human culture is known that
does not have music.
"Despite this, large gaps exist in our knowledge about the underlying
biology," Tramo points out. We don't know how the brain decides if music
is consonant and dissonant. We don't know whether practicing music helps
people master other skills such as math or reading diagrams, although
evidence that merely listening to Mozart in the womb improves IQ scores
is weak or nonexistent.
Tramo made a choice between composing music and studying its biology at
the end of medical school. When he and his roommate at Yale recorded a
demonstration album called "Men With Tales," both RCA and Columbia
Records said they wanted to hear more. But Tramo decided to stay with
medicine. He didn't quit music though. Recently, he and his band recorded
a song, "Living in Fantasy," which ranks in the top 40 of MP3 (accessible
by computer) recordings made in Boston.
"I'm working on the neurobiology of harmony," Tramo says, "but I find
time to compose and play music. Bringing the two together is like
bringing together work and play."
Copyright 2001 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
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