[Dixielandjazz] Musician's Brains - Was Melody v. Chordal

[Stephen Barbone]

Note especially the last sentence in paragraph 5 referencig "melody"
changes.

Cheers, ;-)
Steve Barbone


Musicians found to have 'more sensitive brains'

By Lorna Duckworth, Health Correspondent

17 June 2002

Musicians have bigger and more sensitive brains than people who do not
play instruments, scientists revealed yesterday.

The auditory cortex, which is the part of the brain concerned with
hearing, contains 130 per cent more "grey matter" in professional
musicians than in non-musicians.

In amateur players, the volume of the auditory cortex is between the
two, a team of researchers from Heidelberg University in Germany has
found. They used scans and imaging techniques to compare the size and
activity of the auditory cortex in 37 people.

The professionals, who all performed regularly, showed 102 per cent more
activity in their auditory cortex than non-musicians. Activity in the
brains of amateur musicians was on average 37 per cent higher than in
those who did not play an instrument, the researchers said in a report
in Nature Neuroscience. The auditory cortex consists mainly of "grey
matter" or nerve cells called neurons, which are interconnected by long
filament-like axons, or "white matter".

The scientists found startling physical differences between the three
groups. Those with musical experience had larger amounts of grey matter
in the region called the Heschl's gyrus. The structure contained 536 to
983 cubic millimetres of grey matter in professional musicians, 189 to
798 cubic millimetres in amateurs, and 172 to 450 cubic millimetres in
non-musicians. There was also a high correlation between auditory brain
activity and the musical aptitude of volunteers, who were asked to spot
subtle changes in pairs of short melodies.

The researchers added that post-mortem studies had revealed abnormally
large Heschl's gyrus structures in two eminent musicians. But whether
such differences were due to genetics or the effect of musical exposure
on the brain remained unclear.

"Our results indicate that the morphology and neurophysiology of HG
(Heschl's gyrus) have an essential impact on musical aptitude," said the
report's lead author, Peter Schneider. "The question remains, however,
whether early exposure to music or a genetic predisposition leads to the
functional and anatomical differences between musicians and
non-musicians."