Music, The Food Of Neuroscience

Pinker’s metaphorical expression for music was “auditory cheesecake”, explaining that he considered this function “useless[as a biological adaptation]” (Pinker 1997, p.528). Perhaps avid listeners comfort feed their minds with acoustic cheesecake, but musical knowledge presents the impact of such sweetness goes far beyond just licking the spoon. Extracting Pinker’s perspective, this essay will discuss whether music is valuable in the survival of humans. Arguments will be derived from brain imaging findings to examine its biological predisposition, adaptionist view to seek out its evolutionary status and whether the environment is responsible for demoting music.

Did you know that music is one of the few activities that utilizes the whole entire brain? Did you know that music can physically alter your brain structure? Today I am going to be talking about the power of music and its impacts and effects on the brain. Throughout my whole life I have always had a passion for music of all different types and genres. I listen to music wherever I go and during whatever I’m doing. My mom would continually badger me about the music I was listening to and how it was corrupting my brain. After much research and many songs later, I discovered it actually has many positive effects on the brain. In the rest

For quite a long time, music has been perceived for its capable consequences for state of mind and feeling and its significance and numerous uses amid festivities, ceremonies, occasions, religious customs, social occasions, and the numerous phases of life. In its different structures, music can be straightforward or to a great degree mind boggling, extemporized or very organized, modern or simple. Whether vocal or instrumental, delighted in as an entertainer, audience or crowd part, music roots itself profoundly inside of the mind and is held notwithstanding when recollections start to blur with time, sickness or ailment. Amid the previous decade, propels in neuroscience and cerebrum imaging have made better comprehension of music 's impact on the psyche, body, and human condition. The numerous features of our working as people are coordinated by and drew in inside different locales of the mind. It would likely be simple for the

Music is made up from rhythm and beats with notes and feelings, vocal and/or instrumental sounds combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion. Yet, music is so much more than notes on paper, music represents movements in time, music is memories, history, connections, relaxation and escape. Many people are influenced by music they listen to. “Music is much more than mere entertainment. It has been a feature of every known human society—anthropologists and sociologists have yet to find a single culture throughout the course of human history that has not had music” (Greenberg, 2016).

On this slide we can observe a real brain scan on how does the brain react to music. There are many studies that suggest that music has the power to change people’s emotion and moods, and simultaneously activate several brain areas (Bigliassi, León-Domínguez, & Altimari, 2015; Brown, Martinez, & Parsons, 2004; Mitterschiffthaler, Fu, Dalton, Andrew, & Williams, 2007; Riby,

I. The possible health benefits of music are criticized, yet they yield depreciation in negative emotions, exemplify an increase in physical stimulus, and ultimately instills exponential development.

Munte, Altenmuller, and Jancke (2002) were able to show that musicians have anatomical differences in brain regions that are associated with motor processing. Gaser and Schlaug, (2003) conducted a study that compared professional musicians, amateur musicians, and non-musicians. Their study revealed a recurrence of differences in gray matter that was distributed about the motor, auditory and visual-spatial regions of the cortex. In addition, a study performed by Zatorre, Halpern, and Bouffard (2010) revealed that the intraparietal sulcus is triggered when musicians mentally reverse imagined melodies. They predicted that this area is employed in visual and auditory mental rotation, such as the Mental Rotation Task. The Stroop Task, however, activates the anterior cingulate and is involved in motor modulation, attention, and response selection (Leung et al. 2000).

For instance music can bring back long forgotten memories, or give an athlete the drive to push harder while training in the gym. Brattico and Pearce show that the reason for this lies in the neurological effects that music has on the human mind (2013). The reason for these affects is the way that music affects different parts of the brain like the amygdala, and the auditory cortex (Brattico). By affecting theses parts of the brain music has been shown to have an influence previously thought to only known to be associated with visual stimuli (Brattico). According to Saarkillio, Vuoskoski, and Luck there is even an element of communication in music that is almost like communicating emotions (2014). Silverman states we connect certain tones and tempos with certain feelings, for instance a ballad is almost always played in a minor key with a slowed tempo, and conversely we connect a major key and a quick tempo with feelings of happiness

Oliver Sacks explores the neurology of music and gives examples of patients who he has personally worked with, interviewed or monitored and have displayed various unusual responses to music. The book is told in a manner which is person-focused and story-telling, Musicophilia expounds on music as the back door to our minds. One man gained a sudden appreciation of piano music after being struck by lightning. Some people get seizures from music or hear music in their seizures. Most people experience getting music stuck in their head, but some have more intense musical hallucinations. The main themes of the book include how people involved in some sort of trauma react to music and specific compositions as well as the author’s personal view on the subject.

253). The author proposes that music preceded language. Levitin explains how the creative brain was favored by evolution and natural selection. Natural selection is defined as “the process by which the forms most fit to survive and reproduce in a given environment do so in greater numbers than others in the same population; more than survival of the fittest, natural selection is differential reproductive success” (Kottak, 2013, p.18). All of our ancestors lived long enough to pass their genes down to the next generation, so the author proposes that we love music today because we inherited this preference from our ancestors who survived and reproduced due to their creative and artistic

Over the past few decades, neuroscientists have been studying brain activity with advanced instruments like Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging or Position Emission Tomography .During these studies, participants are asked to do certain activities like reading, or doing math problems. Scientists have noticed that with each task that the participants do there is an area in the brain that corresponds to that activity. When researchers asked the participants to listen to music, they saw “Fireworks” or more than one part of the brain were lighting up at once while they process the sounds to identify the musical components like Melodies, rhythms and harmony and putting it back together to have a unified musical experience. After seeing the results

Specefic Rhetorical Purpose: To inform Public Speaking students about the power of music and its effects on the brain.

In Macedonian hills, the music of Orpheus was said to possess certain magical qualities, having powers strong enough to alter the very behavior of people and animals. Among its abilities, the notes of Orpheus' lyre were said to calm the guard-dog of Hades (1), to cause the evil Furies to cry, and to tame the deadly voices of the Sirens (2). Was this power simply a divine and magical gift with no other explanation, or can we explain more specifically the connections between music and behavior?

“Evidence suggests that music remains just as essential to the human race now as it did 70,000-80,000 years ago.” (Harvey, 2011) Music, song, and dance as art forms have completely integrated with the art works to tell a whole story of the human culture, its history, and its beliefs. The art of music implements cohesion among a society and acts as a framework to our social architecture. “For many, the evolution of art in Homo sapiens is a unique event that is linked to the evolution of the cognitively modern mind.” (Harvey, 2011) As the human mind has evolved, so has art. Sounds, especially music has had a direct effect on the evolution of mankind. Recent studies have shown how the mnemonic structure of music aids and promotes memory, learning, and the organization of knowledge. It is also proven to add structure to time. Cultures and the human species have continued to do and create art over several time periods because it allows humans to not only

Music elicits an emotional and cognitive response in all who listen to it. It is powerful at the individual level because “it can induce multiple responses – physiological, movement, mood, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral” (Francis, 2008,