The Musical Brain: Review of a Documentary

I just watched a documentary on CTV at 7h00 PM called "The Musical Brain". It was a very touching and smart introduction on the purpose and on the impact that music has in our lives, but also how music activates the brain and plays an important role in our general brain development. What is extraordinary about music and the brain is that they are both mysteries and will remain so for a long time if not forever. Also, music is an intangible pleasure that we cannot afford losing as it is as important in our lives as eating although biologically speaking we will not die from music starvation... or will we?

Apparently, adults that learned a musical instrument when younger had on average 7 IQ points more than the adults that didn't. The inference that these individuals are more intelligent can be argued since the IQ rating is not the best representative of intelligence. Another interesting thing was that Alzheimer patients in there final stage could not remember a single person, object or event anymore, but music recognition was intact!

One of the highlights of the documentary is Dr. Daniel Levitin (McGill Researcher and Teacher) who did an experiment on the famous musician and song writer Sting. The latter was intrigued about Levitin's Research and decided to participate, which implied putting him in an fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scanner of the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital. Of the interesting findings of Levitin's experiment, there was the results showing that the caudate was strongly involved in creating new songs. Furthermore, Levitin found activation in the visual cortex and uncommon activation of the corpus callosum (being the major commissure in the brain connecting the two hemispheres) during creation of a song. Levitin stated that as pitch is mostly analysed in the right hemisphere, language is mostly in the left and further suggested that as artist grow more experienced and older, there activation while playing or inventing music is more distributed. Also, in another laboratory, it was found that the medial temporal lobe was strongly activated during improvisation. In yet another experiment, pregnant women or more so the foetuses were exposed to a specific song and, later when the child was born, it was found that those young children were more attentive and expressive when shown that specific song. It is important to mention that at 20 weeks, the offspring inside it's mother uterus can hear, but it does not see.

One of the findings that I really picked upon and that I will for sure mention in the second post on oxytocin is that this hormone is also highly secreted when singing in groups, which increased bonding.

I will end this post with this song A Thousand Years by Sting (cannot chose my favorite since there are so many amazing ones by Sting):


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For the official summary of the documentary, refer to:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/show/CTVShows/20090115/musical_brain/20090119
You can also read the book of Daniel Levitin "This is Your Brain on Music".