ARTICLE TO BE POSTED....written by Norman M. Weinberger, from Scientific American; Nov2004, Vol. 291 Issue 5, p88, 8p, 4 graphs, 6c, 1bw

Current Data submitted by user March 22nd, 2005 to MusicMusique Portal Forum:

Abstract:

The article discusses why music is uniquely powerful in its ability to wring emotions and be so pervasive and important to us. In recent years we have begun to gain a firmer understanding of where and how music is processed in the brain, which should lay a foundation for answering evolutionary questions. Collectively, studies of patients with brain injuries and imaging of healthy individuals have unexpectedly uncovered no specialized brain "center" for music. Rather music engages many areas distributed throughout the brain, including those that are normally involved in other kinds of cognition. Imaging studies have given us a fairly fine-grained picture of the brain's responses to music. Like other sensory systems, the one for hearing is arranged hierarchically, consisting of a string of neural processing stations from the ear to the highest level, the auditory cortex. The processing of sounds, such as musical tones, begins with the inner ear (cochlea), which sorts complex sounds produced by, say, a violin, into their constituent elementary frequencies. The cochlea then transmits this information along separately tuned fibers of the auditory nerve as trains of neural discharges. Music consists of a sequence of tones, and perception of it depends on grasping the relationships between sounds. Many areas of the brain are involved in processing the various components of music. Although most research has focused on melody, rhythm (the relative lengths and spacing of notes), harmony (the relation of two or more simultaneous tones) and timbre (the characteristic difference in sound between two instruments playing the same tone) are also of interest. Brain responses also depend on the experiences and training of the listener. Even a little training can quickly alter the brain's reactions. Studies of musicians have extended many of the findings noted above, dramatically confirming the brain's ability to revise its wiring in support of musical activities. INSETS: SINGING IN THE BRAIN; RETUNING THE BRAIN; Born to Rock?