martes, 7 de julio de 2009

Eavesdropping on the music of the brain

by Nora Schultz
06 July 2009
New Scientist


Brain scans created using functional MRI consist of a series of images in which different areas light up with varying intensity at different times. These can be used to determine which parts of the brain are active during a particular task.




While this difference is also clear from looking at the images, Lloyd's collaborator Vince Calhoun at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, says there are variations in the music from people with schizophrenia that are not visually obvious. "It almost sounds like there is more background warbling," he says.

He suggests that these "unsteady rhythms and cadences" may be indicative of dysfunction in the brain. Lloyd also identified sounds and rhythms in the brains of people with dementia that distinguished them from healthy volunteers.

Could identifying such aural differences ever be useful? Daniel Levitin, a neuroscientist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, thinks they might. He says brain music's killer application might be in allowing researchers to home in on patterns that suggest a particular region is interesting and that wouldn't be detectable using the eye alone. They could analyse these regions more closely using conventional imaging.


Lloyd is also keen to explore the aesthetic aspects of brain music. "It's not quite like composed sound but it's not random either, it's 'almost music'. My students are putting it on their playlists."

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