4The Musical Brain Flashcards
(42 cards)
Where is the transverse temporal gyrus (Heshl’s gyrus) situated?
In the area of primary auditory cortex in the lateral sulcus
What’s another name for a frequency map?
Tonotopic organisation
How many neurons does the average brain have?
About 100 billion
How do signals travel through the brain?
Neurons fire (using glucose & oxygen), sending electrical signals (action potentials) which release neurotransmitters (chemicals), which synapse & bind with post-synaptic receptors, causing next neuron to either fire, inhibit firing, or the transmitting neuron reuptakes neurotransmitter
There are 6 layers of neurons in the grey matter; what function does the white matter have?
Axons are combined into fibre tracts which link different brain areas
What is the Basal Ganglia responsible for?;
What about the Cerebellum?
Timing & motor sequencing;
Fine motor coordination & speaking
What does the Thalamus relay?;
Which nervous system is the Hypothalamus involved with?
Sensory & motor signals to the cortex;
Autonomic nervous system (links nervous & endocrine systems such as pituitary gland)
What is the Amygdala responsible for?;
What about the Hippocampus?;
Emotion & memory processing;
Memory & spatial navigation
Which parts of the brain are involved in performing music?;
Which part is employed for reading music?
Frontal lobe (planning & integration); motor cortex (movement production); sensory cortex (tactile feedback); Occipital lobe
Which brain regions are activated when listening to or recalling lyrics of music?
Broca’s area (speech production); Wernicke’s area (speech understanding); frontal & temporal lobes
Listening to familiar music activates which areas of the brain?
Hippocampus (memory retrieval including timbre); inferior frontal cortex; cerebellum (when tapping along)
In which regions are emotional responses processed?
Amygdala; cerebellar vermis; frontal lobes
How does a Connectionist view brain processing?
Many parts of the brain are interconnected (distributed processing)
In the 60’s, what evidence was found in regards to brain lateralisation?;
What did Bever & Chiarello (1974) find with musicians compared to nonmusicians?
That speech production & comprehension resided in the dominant (usually left) hemisphere; removal of right temporal lobe impaired music processing; left-ear advantage for melody recognition;
Musicians use an analytic strategy in left hemisphere; nonmusicians use holistic strategy in right hemisphere
More recent evidence shows music processing distributed across both hemispheres depending on what?
Musical properties & skills assessed
In more recent studies, what musical characteristics does evidence suggest are processed in the left hemisphere?;
What about the right hemisphere?;
What characteristics seem to be shared between both left & right?
Rhythmic groups & pattern sensitivity (rhythmic skills); “language-like” skills (sight reading & naming notes/pieces);
Beat tracking (metre); pitch & timbre recognition; melody representation; emotional responses;
Out of place chord (for music style); familiar melody recognition
What was the first neurological evidence to show regional specificity of brain function?
Brain damage in the case of Phineas Gage (1848)
When a professional musician suffered a temporo-parietal stroke leading to musical arrhythmia, what were the symptoms?
Impaired rhythmic discrimination & reproduction; preserved metre & melody; auditory modality
What can removal of or damage to the temporal lobe affect?
Music processing
What’s an example of a positive neurological disorder in regards to music?;
What’s a negative example?
Music triggers seizures; Musical impairment (i.e. amusia)
List the different types of Amusia
Receptive (affects perception); expressive (affects production); congenital (e.g tone deafness); acquired (e.g brain injury); selective (one aspect spared while another impaired, e.g tonality/contour)
What is receptive Amusia?
An inability to perceive music as music or distinguish one tone from another; music often sounds like noise (e.g sound of clanging pots & pans)
There are many different forms of selective impairment. Describe Agnosia;
Describe Aphasia;
Impaired recognition (of familiar tunes but retained sensitivity to melodic contour); Impaired speech (retained ability to compose; e.g Russian composer: Vissarion Shebalin);
What’s impaired with Alzheimer’s disease?;
What’s retained?
Speech & memory/recognition abilities;
Ability to sing & recognise familiar music & sensitivity to musical structure (e.g can tell when melody doesn’t resolve to tonic)
