Your brain, listening
A fascinating article from Scientific American on what your brain does when you listen to music (quite a lot, and not just in any one location, apparently). Some of the findings:
Even a little training can quickly alter the brain’s reactions. … Just as some training increases the
number of cells that respond to a sound when it becomes important,
prolonged learning produces more marked responses and physical changes
in the brain. Musicians, who usually practice many hours a day for
years, show such effects–their responses to music differ from those of
nonmusicians; they also exhibit hyperdevelopment of certain areas in
their brains. …In the same year, Blood and Zatorre added a further clue to how music
evokes pleasure. When they scanned the brains of musicians who had
chills of euphoria when listening to music, they found that music
activated some of the same reward systems that are stimulated by food,
sex and addictive drugs.Overall, findings to date indicate that music has a biological basis and that the brain has a functional organization for music.
That does it. It’s time to start playing an instrument again.
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