Your Brain on Music (fMRI)

Music doesn’t make you smarter, at least not generally smarter, but playing music does make you musically smarter. In fact, there have been many recent studies showing profound differences in the brains of people who have studied music. One is that the corpus callosum, the “conduit” between the left and right sides of the brain, is larger in musicians who began to study music (piano) by age 7.

In a recent study by Dr. Nina Kraus–a leading researcher who investigates the neurobiology underlying speech and music perception, as well as learning associated brain plasticity–participants who had been studying music from a young age were better able to perceive emotion in a baby’s voice, and, in another study by Dr. Kraus, musicians had greater ability–especially as they grew older–to separate out sounds in the environment, called auditory stream segregation. You can learn more of those studies through the links below.

Anyway, many of these details went through my own little gray cells as I watched the mesmerizing video below, I thought of all this while watching the musician Sivu sing his tune, Better Man Than He, filmed in an fMRI.

Here’s what The Verge found:

Sivu says the concept for the video stemmed from his obsession “with the idea of capturing images without conventional cameras/lenses.” More importantly, the musician says he also took inspiration from “research into improving the management of children born with cleft lip and palate.” The video was produced at St Bartholomew’s Hospital (a central fixture in that research) and was made possible thanks to funding from Barts and the London Charity and CLEFT.

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The post-production effects are also artfully done. Check it out: