Can music rebuild my brain?

makes me in my head not a little. It has kind of like a kind of an i d M. Intelligent dance music kind of sound to it. To it. It makes me sort of think of like a a dark Alison Wonderland type forest, and there's like all sorts of weird things going on in the darkness, maybe like flashing little points of light and there's something there's something really amazing going on in the darkness, and uh, and you're just kind of wondering, all my goodness, what's what's

going on out there? Like all I'm talking about is classics shaken and you're and you've fallen down the rabbit hole. I like that than another Loose Carroll reference there. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean that's the great thing about music because it's it's you know, And this is kind of a an overstatement of the obvious here, but it has a profound and varying effect on on on the listener, right, Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, do you have any earworms or there any instances that you feel like with music that really sort of grabs you by the shirt tails or oh? I mean I I listen to music pretty constantly at work. Like, I don't think I'd get any work done or or be able to commute properly if I didn't have f music going. And I've also found that, like when it comes to it to earworms, I will I will definitely get some like annoying earworms here and there, but but most of the worms I get are more like just

the music and not the lyrics. Like even I think a an earworm that a lot of people may suffer from is that that Lady Gaga song the what is it? The I don't know, Yeah, I refuse to let it into my brain. Okay, well you you you're you're fortunate this far. I mean, I I don't know. I kind of like a part of the song, but then the rest of it just kind of like just slams in your head and won't let go, and then you're just trying to shake it out. Yeah. Yeah, so that's the

problem with earworms. Yeah yeah, Yeah. For me, I've got a couple like one that's just a benevolent earworm right now is a Tarrangela by Robin Hitchcock. So sometimes I'll wake up in the morning I can hear the harmonic and it's nice, and then yeah, that's a good ear warm. Most of my worms I feel are good. Okay, so you're lucky because I've got one that's I've had for like a decade and I can't shake. And it usually

happens like at three o'clock in the morning. I can't go to sleep and all of a sudden, I can hear the piano going, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. It's a hard not And I know there's something about that song and the lyrics. So it's interesting that for you it's it's not necessarily lyrics that are haunting you. But but that's what music is. For me. It's both. It's both the destroyer and the creator. Yeah, it's um. It's also a huge energizer, Like I think it's interesting how

uh you know. The scientists pointed out that like the like slower music, you're you're sad music, you're you're you're you know, more relaxing music tends to be a lot you know, you know, slower and slower beat going on and then and then the faster music. You know, it has some sort of like really you know, raxtous beat to it that that's what gets you pumped up. Like if you I don't know if you've ever done this, if you've ever put on I have the tiger Oh

yeah this morning? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you know sometimes that's that's what you need to get out of the house or you know, to to really throw yourself at a project. Yeah yeah, I do that right before I scale the steps eight hundred steps um near my local park. Oh excellent, yes, yeah, well cool. Then in the fighting spirit right and then I get it, I get it. The adrenaline is pumping. Yeah. I also have this theory that nobody can listen to Staying Alive without altering the

way they walk, you know. But that's a good thing. That's I I think it's a good it's a great song, and I think we should always walk Like we're listening to that. I think about how that would change the world. Like imagine of like like like soldiers and people in our OTC, Like if they had to march to staying alive, Like, it would be an entirely different scene. That's right. There would be no wars, right, it would just be people styling and looking good. See that's an't that's a good

example of how music can change your brain. Yeah. And when we say it change the brain, I mean it's it's really it's really amazing what it can do and what it what it does do on like to all of us like every day. But like first, like what what do you think music is like? And what is it to you? Bare bones? Yeah, well, I I was thinking about it, and I kept coming up with with kind of elaborate answers. But I actually have to just sort of refer to Websters on this one because the

Westers is a very it's not very creative. It's you know, the Webster's definition. It's pretty succinct, and it just says the quote the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to

produce a composition. Having unity and continuity. So it's like it's a series of sounds that makes some sort of sense that have like a almost almost a kind of like a narrative flow to them, even though there are no characters in a song unless you're going with some sort of Peter and the Wolf type of motif. You know. Yeah, okay, so you have to have rhythm, tone meter, what else? Um, Sometimes instruments a melody a melody, right, A little air

horn drops in here and there just for sure becauzoo zoo. Yeah, yeah, I just sneeze. Um. So I think that's the really cool thing about music is that it can really be anything. Yeah. And it cross culture is too. Yeah. I mean it's a deep part of our cognitive architecture too. Is as we discussed previously when we're talking about what alien how aliens would interpret human culture and what really stands out about who we are, like, music is a huge part of who we are and uh, you know it changed.

It has the power to change our mood, to heighten our our emotions. Um. Well, and the the thing though that should be noted is that, um, we're not entirely sure how music affects our brains were just now getting some data from what the last ten years, Yeah, five to ten. It's it's it's pretty much and continues to be an emerging area of study. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty explosive area to to look into our explicit field

right now. And you've got cognitive psychologists and linguists. Stephen Pinker, who uh, he's just he's sort of the oh, I don't know. I guess you would say that he's the party pooper on this. He thinks that music is just auditory cheesecake and it's space like an accident of evolution, like, hey, guess what it gets talk and sing? Yeah, I mean he he at least he's not a complete villain about it.

And he's kind of like, like, I understand wanting to make more out of music than it is, but I don't you know, that's that's his his whole argument, right, And then you have other people on the other side of the coin. They're like, they're saying, we've got to

make more out of this because of the findings. So um so I think it's interesting to to dive into that and look at the findings and find out how our brains work on music and specifically, like when we're listening to music, what's what's happening inside of our brains? Like just to put things in perspective, Like a lot of times, you know, people wonder is music, um, is it this thing under itself or is it just like

the flip side of language? But you know, there are parts of the brain that respond to music that don't respond to language. And there are separate parts of the of the brain that respond to the melody of language, um that are different from the parts of the brain that respond to music. So it's it's not just you know,

it's clearly doing unique things to our mind. Yeah, Like if you look at a brain scan that you can see that it's letting up like a pinball machine or you know, as as someone had said um before in some of the literal I was reading that it's it's almost looks like a symphony. There are different parts of the symphony that are queuing up and working in concert. Yeah, and what they're looking at tends to be um um,

blood flow, oxygen flow in the brain. That those are the indicators to show that there's something that there's there's definite neural activity going on. And I think we've all seen these brains, you know, if you haven't seen it in a movie, you've seen it on you know, at

least channel flipping through your you know, your different documentary channels. Yeah, and and uh, it's it's pretty fascinating when you do see the brain lighting up like that because you get to see where the music is entering the ear, and it's going into the front well and temporal lobes and then into the language processing areas, and then the visual cortex lights up, and that's, um, that's actually really interesting because that's your brain kind of trying to get a

visual beat on the changes in pitch and tone. So it's looking at it in a visual way. It's perceiving that as movement. Okay, So kind of like when I see the dark forest with the lights in it exactly. Yeah, you're already sort of imagining yourself in movement, which is really interesting when when you're thinking about music and then you've got your metal front cortex, and that's where if you've heard that song before, you get all weaky or

you get sad. Okay. So this is like, for an example, if I listened to a particularly sad song during a like really depressing episode in my life and I and I tear up listening to it again or or get kind of weird about it if I listened to it again, that's what's going on, right, right. Or if you're like sitting there listening to Nick Drake and you know it's raining outside or something along those lines. Um, but if you're listening to something that makes you happy, then your

brain starts releasing dopamine. Okay, Yeah, so you've got the reward center occupied as well. Just pretty cool. And one of the things I think is most interesting is that sometimes your neural firing synchronizes to the fundamental frequency of

that sound that you're picking up. Wow, So you would be able to to look at it like a live scan of the brain, and it would it would essentially be like the visualizer on Windows Media Player, right right, Yeah, you'd have these uh neural finds that are like or something along these lines. Maybe maybe you wouldn't, but in a centric millionaire could could like hire a dude to like remain hooked up to a brain scanner and you could just set the and that could be his his

visualizer visualizer, that's right. If he was going to take it to that other level of entertainment. Yeah. Absolutely, m I see what you're going to be doing with your first million. Um. But all of this was pointing to the fact that, like you said, there's a lot going on the brain. There's parts that are lighting up. You've got blood flow, you've got oxygen. And what we're beginning to see is that music is tripping all sorts of switches in our brain and possibly even making a smarter

if we engage in certain ways with it. And I think you see that actually with musicians. Yeah, Yeah, there's been some some really cool studies, UM into just you know, how how musicians brains appear to work versus non musician brains.

They've done some uh they have evenen some studies where they take they take a non musician, give them like a year of like you know, musical lessons, seeing lessons, what have you, and and they can see the changes in the neural activity, right and this they could be a terrible singer, right right. Yeah, but the fact that they're exercising this part of the brain means that what they've built up some some more muscle there, so to speak. Yeah, it's really made me rethink. I mean, I don't know.

I really don't know how musically inclined you are, um, I in terms of instruments, because I took piano lessons, I took like a recorder lesson. I was in like band for like trumpet and french horn. Played none of these things well at all. I was. I was you know, pretty uh, pretty pretty inept at times, especially with the piano.

I feel. But but I've had to rethink it because I'm because I'm thinking, like, even though I didn't excel at those things, it got my brain thinking in a musical way, and maybe that benefited me in the long run, right and in other ways that you might have not even known. Yeah, um no, well I'd not really musically incline, you know. In um college, I took my grandfather's saxophone.

It's saxophone, it's awesome, and had it restored, and I took lessons and I was terrible, and I would try to bend the notes, and my music teacher would get really angry and just say please, just like learn the notes and do it well. And I thought, well, surely after six months, I can I can sound um like Coltrane, right, um. But that didn't work out so I got discouraged. But yeah, like you, I'm rethinking it. I'm thinking, okay, if if I, even if I'm terrible at it, um, maybe this can

help me to have a thicker cortex like other musicians. Uh, And which just basically means that you've got a lot more activity going on your frontal cortex and the areas of your brain that are responsible for language and planning. And this is another cool thing about musicians. They're better at picking out selective patterns in a room where there's that might be a cacophony of sound, So they kind

of have better selective hearing, if you will. So if you needed someone to like spy on somebody in a busy room, hire the spy that has a musical background. See that's why I was thinking I should continue with saxophone lessons, because you never know when you're gonna have to switch over a full time to that spying career, right right, It's it's just a good thing to have in your back pocket. Yeah, nobody wants to hear I'm sorry, but I'm going to go with the bassoon player. No, yeah, no,

it's true. But but the other thing that all of this is pointing to is of course music and children, right, and the fact that children who study and learn music aren't just increasing their motor skills, but they're scoring higher on language tests than they show an overall improved processing and linguistic centers of the brain. So you have to be engaging in the music, of course, can't just be a passive listener. But that also makes me think of

the mosartiffect. Okay, this is where you play Mozart for an unborn child. Well, this is what Yeah, this was the result of a study. That's that's actually that's the interpretation um from the results. But the result is that basically college students who went underwent the study that when they listen to Mozart that for some temporal spatial testing that they actually increased their scores. But it was temporary, and they were bored, and they were bored, and they

were they were constructing things out of paper. Um, so that was essentially the test. But people took that and they ran with it. And like Governor Zell Miller, if Georgia had mandated that every child born would get a Mozart c D and so the you know, it wasn't quite that. And I think that's the interesting to point out that it's not just listening to music, it's engaging in it that really helps benefit the brain and builds

it up quite a bit more musically. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, And I think the most extreme case of this is probably in some ailments that occur in the brain um story victims Parkinson's disease along those lines, right, they're they're able to actually use the music to repair damn it,

to to to rebuild the brain. And in a certain sense, yeah, in a way, I mean Parkinson's um You know, of course you're your motor system is going to be tripped up with that, and so music kind of helps the auditory system and the motor system, uh, be in concert with each other. So if you've got a partisan patient and you put on a rhythm track, that actually helps

that person to better coordinate their movements. So again, think about the neurons, you know, firing to a certain beat or like playing staying alive, and everybody ends up kind of threatened instead of just walking right right. Yeah, So during physical therapy, you know, you just have to imagine that you're you're in the movie walking down the street, You're staying a lot. This presentation is brought to you

by Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow. I have to admit, like when I whenever I go to like a like a concert or like a big like DJ event, and uh and in the crowd is really into it. I can't help but think of like old Viking movies where there's like the guy on the back of the king ship of Viking longboat like beating on the drum and everyone's moving in tandem with the drummer. Because that's how it feels. It's like one guy, you know, be it or you know,

one band or the DJ or whoever. It's like they're controlling everyone and everyone is just synchronized with this beat, you know. Yeah. And actually, um, people who who talk about the auditory cheesecake, they actually point to that experience that you're talking about and say that, uh, music is actually a way to bring people together. It does have an evolutionary purpose and that if you can get everybody's neurons synchronized in a group, then you can form some

sort of basis of cooperation for community. Well that's instantly. And part of this is because I'm reading rereading Name of the Roads. I can't help but think of a monastic community and the importance of music. Yeah, and I imagine any like church groups, uh, etcetera, or even even the military, I guess come to think of it, like with the sort of thing those little songs they chant while they're marching. My mom said, yeah, yeah, that one, that that classic ballad. Um. Yeah, it's like a community

building thing. They're all sort of syncing up and becoming one body under the music. Yeah. Yeah, So I mean they are, Like I said, there are people who point to that and say, there is a purpose, there's a reason why all of us have this what they think innate ability to understand music, um and to incorporate it in our lives. And if you look at the importance of music, especially with memory we're talking about a little bit earlier, with the medial front cortex, that that's where

all your memories are stored. They're finding that Alzheimer's patients and dementia patients are responding really well to musical therapy because when they hear pieces of music, it actually helps sense to sort of unlock the box, you know, crack it, open access their memories again and actually helping them to increase their short term and long term memory, which is really cool. Yeah, and then you've got stroke victims who they may be able to understand what you're saying, but

they can't. They the use of language is gone. They can't express themselves. And they've been singing in some studies, Uh, what they're trying to say phrases and in some cases they can sing two hundred three hundred phrases. Um, they may on a sort of road to recovery and being able to eventually speak again. Yeah, so music is definitely Are they singing what they want to say? Are they

singing things? Yeah? Yeah, yeah. Actually there's a documentary called The Music Intuition, and they show a woman who is going through therapy and, uh, the woman that's working with her says, Okay, now suppose that your two year old daughter is about to run down the street, what do you say? And she sings wait for me? But she couldn't never say wait for me, you know, So she's

regaining that ability through music. It's interesting because we were actually talking the other day about how it might be a little difficult if we were to do a musical episode of the podcast. But for someone who's having to reclaim their speech, like music is the the in road to speaking again. That's interesting. Yeah, and so that's that's again where the mystery is sort of coming in, because you know, again, this is a fairly new field of study.

Ten years ago, people didn't necessarily know that music could access your brain in these ways. And I'm also thinking about another therapy session. This was done by neuroscientists David Soto. He had sixty stroke victims who sustained damage to her parietal cortex, which is related to visual and spatial processing. And it was very unusual and that the victims lost half of their spatial weren't awareness and some of them would eat food on only one side of her mouth,

or they would shave only one side of their face. Yeah, so their perceptions way off. So what happened is when Soto played music that made them happy they during their therapy, they were actually able to increase their abilities and be able to perceive more. And the interesting thing about this is that they played a couple of different pieces of music, but the ones that were most popular for Frank Sinatra and Kenny Rogers. I guess of the two of the

two who had the better results with the victims. Um, I'm thinking Frank probably took more of a firm hand with him. Okay, I would think so too. Fly Me to the Moon very uplifting. Kenny Rogers, Please tell me it was early Kenny Rodgers at least I don't know. The fifth edition was the fifth edition that's in the Land of Lady Gaga for me. I'm sorry, you know, just stepped in to see what condition my condition was in. Oh yes, okay, I didn't have that one. Oh boy, yeah,

that's it's as track. I bet that probably is someone that I would hope, so yeah, well we hope. Yeah. Um, but they thought about actually renaming it the Kenny Rogers Effect, no joke, I'm not kidding, but um, that kind of points to the fact that when you are happy, when you're listening to music, you've got the release of dopamines, and that when you have the release of dopamins, that

you've actually got more neural resources. So that's what they're seeing there with the stroke victims is that it was actually allowing them to perform a skill set that they

didn't necessarily happy for. What's interesting, they've they've also been some some studies into how music can be used for people suffering from chronic heart disease and the the results are not set in stone on this one, um, but they've but scientists have found that that like in a study that had like, you know, about participants, they found that it had a modern effect on anxiety, uh in

patients with the c h D chronic card disease. UM. But the results were kind of inconsistent across the studies. But that but that listening to music reduces heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure in other words, you know, a calming effect on the body, which can have you know, can be very medicinal given certain conditions such as chronic card disease UM. And then I've also also saw a few studies talking about it to use in treating depression

or or anxiety. And again it a part of it comes down to, you know, like if anybody who's ever like meditated to music or or used relax that used music as a relaxation tool, you know obviously knows the relaxing effects of music. But but but but you know that very effect has a can have a clinical use as well. They've also found that in some therapies it's kind of like music is you know, music is a universal language to sort of use a you know, kind

of a cliche term there. But but if you have a person who's not very receptive to therapy um and and and maybe not that receptive to just one on one, you know, verbal communication, music can kind of break down doors. It's it's something they can instantly get and it's less threatening to them. So that's one of the benefits they thought that the experts have found with music therapy, you know, on the opposite side of the coin, I just have to mention that I ran across the Study of Mice

and Meth. I wish that were the title of it, but that's actually wasn't um of Mice and Meth. That they took these mice and they put them on math and then they gave some of them a quiet space, and some of them they just blasted really loud music, and they wanted to see if the toxicity levels would

rise with a really loud music. Very particular study. Well, what they were trying to do is say, um that if you're on meth and in you're on nightclub, that it can actually be um, I'm much more dangerous to you. This is the you know, what they pose it because it enhances the toxic effects of meth the load music, and I thought, wow, that's that's so disturbing and poor mice.

And I've got to say that we need to start cataloging all of the little indignities that they have to suffer in the name of science as we can figure out our drug effits. Yeah. Yeah, so that you know, like I said on the flip side there, I mean, yes, like you said, it can be um can be very healing. But I mean music is powerful in the sense that it could illuminate um other other areas of your brain. I shouldn't say illuminate, I should say and enhance those

parts of your brain. If you happen to be on meth and you are a mouse out there, quick little diversion there. So I think what all of this is pointing to is that we have something called neural plasticity. Okay, and this just means that the brain is not set in stone, that it's there are our neural architecture can change, right, Yeah, I mean this is like the really incredible message of all of this is that if if you can help uh someone who has Parkinson's, you know, get back on

the road. To therapy with music because it's stimulating parts of their brain that they didn't know it could stimulate before. What can it do to our own brains? You know,

what can we going forward to learn from us? Yeah, and just also the message to that, like when you're listening to music, it's like we tend to sort of think our music something I listened to it in the background, you know, or you know, it's it's playing in the car, or you know, I I turned it on to just chill out or rock out in the afternoon or what you know, whatever however you do it. But but something

really deeper is going on. You know, You're it's kind of like it's you, You're, you're you're sort of recharging your your mind, rewriting your mind, even depending on what you're listening to and how you listen to it, right, your emotions are being provoked and you may not even know it. Just I mean, you might be in the elevator listening to elevator music. So you know, music, music

is manipulation too in that sense. And we're in the day and age where we're surrounded by and you know, I actually, you know, thankfully for me, I feel like we're in the day and age where we have access to so much music at the same time it is it's ubiquitous. Yeah, it is everywhere, and it's just there.

There's so much great music out there. And like one of the I think the good things about the Internet is that you had It's like you can explore so much, whereas like when I was in high school, had like the worst musical taste because I had so little to pull from, you know, right, Yeah, and this is interesting to found this out that perfect pitch in Western cultures, uh, fourteen percent of the population is represented, which is miniscule, right,

people who have perfect pitch, But in Asian cultures that it's actually yeah, and there's warm theorist who comes at it by saying that those languages are microtonal and um. In fact, I think about it this way. Have you ever heard Chinese opera? Yes, okay, probably the first time you heard it, did it seem sort of jarring and maybe even off key and no offense to people who

love it. But every time I've heard it it's starring okay, So, and I think that's because we're all, you know, creating these these neural pathways right in neural systems of understanding of music, and so what you're exposed to is a Westerner is probably what your preference is going to be. And so if you, as an Asian have a microtonal language, then what that's basically doing for you is giving you

a more nuanced understanding of pitch, tone, melody, rhythm. And so the idea is that put you in a lot better position to be able to have perfect pitch and detect it, which is another very cool crossroads I think of language and music and something that we have to reconsider how music works with language, um in its own right. Interesting. So it's that's sort of exciting to me. Yeah, now I will I do have to stress. I do like a lot of Asian music, just not not Chinese like

court orchestra type stuff. Well sure, yeah, but I get it. It's not first on my playlist. Yeah, it's it's it's a little jarring. So if you want to know more about these topics, go to the House to Works dot com website and check out is There a Link Between Music and Happiness by Molly Edmonds And if you happen to, you know, hit the video store. If you're turning into PBS or you you just use Netflix, especially Netflix streaming. You can watch the documentary The Music Instincts Aience and Song.

It is a fascinating what two hours, Yeah, and it just it really hits. Uh. It's like some of the stuff we've talked about, but then the whole the whole other area too. Yeah. Bobby mcfarren is uh, I guess you would say, uh, sort of the host of it. Yeah, yeahs at least a co host in it. They get pretty heavy into the neurological implications of of music and and what it what it says, what it might say in the future. Really really good, really good show. Check

it out. And music and space, music in space. Yes. Yeah. So if you've got an earworm that you would like to let us know about, we want to hear about it. Yeah, And I'm interested to know of anybody else out there has the situation where most of the earworms are are non lyrical because I haven't really I don't know if

I've meant anybody that else it has that. Not that I'm patting myself on the back back for being strange or anything, but I just feel like other himself on the back, but some other people have to have that too, so yeah, absolutely let us now. You can email us at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com, and you can also find us on Facebook and Twitter, where you can also find us as blow the Mind. Thanks for listening. For more on this and thousands of

other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The how stuff Works iPhone app has a ride. Download it today on iTunes.