Music and the Brain

[Monomer]

A couple of researchers scanned the brains of jazz musicians while they performed various "jazz" tasks while in an MRI machine.

Here's what they found:

The prefrontal cortex, which controls many of our higher mental abilities from planning to problem-solving, was particularly strongly affected. Large swathes of it were completely shut down, including the LOFC (lateral orbifrontal cortex), which monitors and blocks out inappropriate behaviours, and the DLPFC (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), which is involved in planning and focused, methodical thinking.

Within the large prefrontal cortex, only one area was strongly activated during improvisation - the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). Recent studies have suggested that the MPFC plays a role in our sense of self, and it certainly lights up when people recount personal anecdotes. To Limb and Braun, its heightened activity fits with the idea that musicians use improvisation as an outlet for expressing their own musical voice and experiences.

The scans imply that there is a very consistent pattern of brain activity linked to creativity, a pattern of heightened senses and self-expression with a lack of conscious control. And the very similar results from the Scale and Jazz scans suggest that this has nothing to do with the complexity of the music and everything to do with the creativity of the performers.

Not Exactly Rocket Science : What happens in the brain of an improvising jazz musician?

It would be interesting to see if others have done something similar with different types of music.

[freeztar]

Related Hypography news release here:
http://hypography.com/forums/medical...ght=jazz+music

It is very interesting to note the regions affected during improvisation. The article mentions further studies with non-musicians, etc. I look forward to these.

[paigetheoracle]

Researchers at North Carolina State University have found out that Rap Music brings out the sexist in people, male or female. This doesn't surprise me because the heavy, insistant beat is violent in the extreme and stirs up hatred in me listening to it, so it doesn't surprise me that it does this in others as well.

It originated in violent gang culture and although we here various rap stars trying to promote peace on the streets, even some of these have died from shootings (Public Enemy for instance - sadly he who lives by the gun, dies by the gun: Courageous people are peaceful people - the frightened get together in gangs because they are too frightened to stand alone, arm themselves to the teeth for the same reason and get tanked/ drugged up to do what they haven't got the guts to do when sober (Too awake and aware to do what alcohol/ drugs remove the inhibitions on).

Sad.

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by paigetheoracle

Researchers at North Carolina State University have found out that Rap Music brings out the sexist in people, male or female. This doesn't surprise me because the heavy, insistant beat is violent in the extreme and stirs up hatred in me listening to it, so it doesn't surprise me that it does this in others as well.

It doesn't do it to me. I imagine that if you like rap, you will not be hateful/sexist, but if you hate rap, then...

Where can I find this study you speak of Paige?

It originated in violent gang culture and although we here various rap stars trying to promote peace on the streets, even some of these have died from shootings (Public Enemy for instance - sadly he who lives by the gun, dies by the gun: Courageous people are peaceful people - the frightened get together in gangs because they are too frightened to stand alone, arm themselves to the teeth for the same reason and get tanked/ drugged up to do what they haven't got the guts to do when sober (Too awake and aware to do what alcohol/ drugs remove the inhibitions on).

Sad.

That is just not true.
Roots of hip hop - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Monomer]

Originally Posted by freeztar

Related Hypography news release here:
http://hypography.com/forums/medical...ght=jazz+music

It is very interesting to note the regions affected during improvisation. The article mentions further studies with non-musicians, etc. I look forward to these.

I hadn't realised that was there... Thanks freeztar!

Those further studies will be interesting indeed.

[paigetheoracle]

Originally Posted by freeztar

It doesn't do it to me. I imagine that if you like rap, you will not be hateful/sexist, but if you hate rap, then...

Where can I find this study you speak of Paige?


That is just not true.
Roots of hip hop - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I stand corrected and it might have been Run-DMC that lost both of its original members to shooting, not Public Enemy (Not a Rap fan, so not accurate on it). By the Hip-hop is not Rap, even if it came from the same roots. As for the study - I read about it in a newspaper report and the only information I have is what I put above.

By the way there was an experiment done with plants in the sixties I believe, that showed that rock music had a detrimental effect on their growth but Mozart had a good effect - Rap music has a heavy insistant beat, so I still believe that science is with me on the effects and lyrics of this type of music. Is it relaxing? Does it help you chill out? Is its effects on the ears (or plants) healthy? How many Rap stars have suffered violence at the hands of others, compared with other forms of music? My case rests.

[enorbet2]

Comments follow:

Originally Posted by paigetheoracle

I stand corrected and it might have been Run-DMC that lost both of its original members to shooting, not Public Enemy (Not a Rap fan, so not accurate on it). By the Hip-hop is not Rap, even if it came from the same roots. As for the study - I read about it in a newspaper report and the only information I have is what I put above.

Paige this is just ridiculous prejudice. Run-DMC was/is not gangsta rap and Russel Simmonds is a patron of the arts in spoken word, comedy, and music as well as a successful businessman in numerous arenas, and another member is a minister, not exactly lives of desperation and violence. I'm certain studies would show that those members of groups that have died violently would not comprise a greater percentage of violent death than from a similar sized sample from the community in which they were raised.

Originally Posted by paigetheoracle

By the way there was an experiment done with plants in the sixties I believe, that showed that rock music had a detrimental effect on their growth but Mozart had a good effect - Rap music has a heavy insistant beat, so I still believe that science is with me on the effects and lyrics of this type of music. Is it relaxing? Does it help you chill out? Is its effects on the ears (or plants) healthy? How many Rap stars have suffered violence at the hands of others, compared with other forms of music? My case rests.

This is as baseless as assuming heavy metal causes suicide or violent video games promote criminal behaviour or that erotica causes rape. All such connections have been thoroughly discredited and shown to be based in prejudice. Similarly just what conclusions do you suppose one could draw from plants applicable to humans, assuming the test was valid science and not urban myth?

I'm not defending the music in terms of like or dislike (some I like, some I don't fwiw) but I am attacking the notion that it causes anything other than curved air and maybe an altered heartbeat. Anything more specific or complex than that is pure Zvengali horse pucky.