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WE DISCUSS THE LATEST RESEARCH ON MUSIC'S INFLUENCE ON OUR BRAINS · Understanding the Brain

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Understanding the Brain. This podcast is designed to
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: introduce individuals with or without a background in science to
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  Speaker 1: the modern field of neuroscience, drawing on everyday experience and
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  Speaker 1: popular books as well as current research to enlighten the listener.
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  Speaker 1: Let's get started.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone. Well, today we have a great guest,
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  Speaker 2: Doctor Annie Patel pa Tel is a professor of psychology
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  Speaker 2: at Tufts University. He received his PhD from Harvard University.
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  Speaker 2: He then joined the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, California,
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  Speaker 2: where here's a senior fellow from two thousand and five
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  Speaker 2: to twenty twelve. So what are we going to be
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  Speaker 2: talking to doctor p Tel about. Well, he focuses on
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  Speaker 2: music cognition, the mental processes involved in making, perceiving, and
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  Speaker 2: responding to music. Areas of emphasis include music language relations,
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  Speaker 2: the topic of his two thousand and eight book, which
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  Speaker 2: I highly recommend, called Music Language and the Brain, Rhythmic process,
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  Speaker 2: and cross speech. She studies of music cognition a whole
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  Speaker 2: lot more. You know, we've been talking a lot about
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  Speaker 2: the brain this year, and we continue, so I'm really
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  Speaker 2: looking forward to this conversation. Before we get started, my
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  Speaker 2: show share subscribe. Hey, if you're an Apple, give us
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  Speaker 2: five stars. That's not waste any more time and welcome
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  Speaker 2: to the show. Doctor Bateell Walkome, Professor, Hi, thank you,
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  Speaker 2: thank you for having me, Thank you for being here.
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  Speaker 2: Fascinating topic. I've looked at music. We know music plays
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  Speaker 2: a huge role in our lives. What got you motivated
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  Speaker 2: to studying music and cognition?
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  Speaker 3: I was a biologist as an undergraduate of studying biology,
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  Speaker 3: and I loved it, and I kind of knew I
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  Speaker 3: wanted to.
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  Speaker 4: Study biology in some way, and I got sort of.
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  Speaker 3: Interested in behavior and how our brains support the various
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  Speaker 3: behaviors that we have. And one day, kind of walking
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  Speaker 3: around campus as an undergrad, I thought, God, what is
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  Speaker 3: the most What's the behavior I want to study the most?
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  Speaker 3: What do I want to understand from a biology perspective?
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  Speaker 3: And I love music, but I had never studied it.
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  Speaker 3: Wasn't a music major or anything, but I had such
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  Speaker 3: a strong personal relationship to it that I thought, Wow,
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  Speaker 3: what's that about. Why does this affect me so deeply
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  Speaker 3: and so many people so deeply? Could we ever understand
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  Speaker 3: this from a biological perspective? And that kind of set
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  Speaker 3: me down the path of studying music in the brain.
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  Speaker 2: Fascinating stuffic, but see, it's a lot of fun. It's
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  Speaker 2: an interesting topic and I no doubt about that. So
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  Speaker 2: I guess, for gravity's sake, what are some of the
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  Speaker 2: things you've been looking at regards to using and cognition.
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  Speaker 3: Well, one of my big areas has kind of been
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  Speaker 3: looking at how is the processing of music related to
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  Speaker 3: the processing of language. I'm talking about ordinary spoken language
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  Speaker 3: when I say language, and you know, music I'm talking
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  Speaker 3: about could be instrumental music, could be singing. And these
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  Speaker 3: things are, you know, obviously very different. No one would
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  Speaker 3: ever confuse speech and song, or speech with playing a
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  Speaker 3: musical instrument, but they're both kind of forms of communication.
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  Speaker 3: And there was a long line of theorizing that they
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  Speaker 3: were just fundamentally different beasts inside the brain, that they
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  Speaker 3: kind of were processed by totally different brain regions, they
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  Speaker 3: didn't really have much to do with each other in
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  Speaker 3: kind of light of modern neurology, and I began to
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  Speaker 3: wonder if that was really true, and so my graduate
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  Speaker 3: work kind of started me down the path of actually
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  Speaker 3: doing experiments to see to what extent does our brain
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  Speaker 3: use some of the same principles and mechanisms when we
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  Speaker 3: process music and language, even purely instrumental music, compared to
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  Speaker 3: ordinary spoken language, and found some surprising overlap in that,
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  Speaker 3: and that ended up having implications for various real world
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  Speaker 3: things like whether or not you can use music training
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  Speaker 3: to help people with language problems like dyslexia or other
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  Speaker 3: kinds of problems after stroke, for example. So it was
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  Speaker 3: kind of like finding the hidden connections between the way
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  Speaker 3: the brain does things that at the surface look very
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  Speaker 3: very different.
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  Speaker 2: I can imagine. So, and did you notice what areas
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  Speaker 2: of bringing I guess, let's say, get activated the most
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  Speaker 2: when you're listening to music, or does it vary depending
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  Speaker 2: on the type of music of the genre.
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  Speaker 4: Great question.
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  Speaker 3: People used to think that, you know, music was largely
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  Speaker 3: a right brain phenomenon and like language was largely a
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  Speaker 3: left brain phenomenon. And one of the first things we
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  Speaker 3: learned when we started looking at human brains through brain
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  Speaker 3: imagy was how oversimplified that view was. It turns out
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  Speaker 3: music and language both used widespread networks on both sides
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  Speaker 3: of the brain. There are some regions that seem specialized for.
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  Speaker 4: One or the other.
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  Speaker 3: In the in the auditory regions of our brain, for example,
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  Speaker 3: But there are also regions where those sound processing things overlap,
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  Speaker 3: and so we use widespread networks front including things that
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  Speaker 3: happen towards the front of our brain, things that happened
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  Speaker 3: toward the more to the back, the cerebellum, and the
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  Speaker 3: basal gang of these deep brain structures, as well as
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  Speaker 3: motor planning regions. One of the cool findings of recent
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  Speaker 3: years is that when we experience music with a beat
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  Speaker 3: that makes us want to move even if we don't move,
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  Speaker 3: even if we're perfectly sitting perfectly still with no intention
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  Speaker 3: of moving, we see strong activity in the motor regions
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  Speaker 3: of our brain brain that normally handle movement, as if
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  Speaker 3: somehow just feeling a beat internally is a kind of
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  Speaker 3: inner movement that it's not activating these motor systems. We
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  Speaker 3: think probably that's involved in predicting the timing of beats,
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  Speaker 3: which is part of what beat perception is.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, is that that part of my brain compromise. I
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  Speaker 2: can't dance worth a lick. It's interesting. I guess it
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  Speaker 2: makes me think about Parkinson's. Have we seen anything regards
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  Speaker 2: to that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm super glad you mentioned that that is actually
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  Speaker 3: one of the areas where this kind of work meets
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  Speaker 3: the real world. So it turns out that for some
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  Speaker 3: Parkinson's patients ufer from difficulties with walking and initiating movement
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  Speaker 3: and walking fluidly, that music with a beat can really
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  Speaker 3: help them. And you know, this has been known for
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  Speaker 3: a while clinically. Some colleagues of mine have helped turn
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  Speaker 3: this into a therapy for Parkinson's patients called rhythmic auditory stimulation,
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  Speaker 3: and it can help some of these patients quite a bit.
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  Speaker 3: And you can see videos of this on YouTube. In fact,
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  Speaker 3: there are people posting videos of themselves just in their
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  Speaker 3: living rooms and you can see they have Parkinson's. They're
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  Speaker 3: walking a very shuffy their gaita is kind of shuffy,
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  Speaker 3: unstable gait. And then they put on the music and
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  Speaker 3: you see how they just become so much more fluid
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  Speaker 3: and they start to move to the beat. And so
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  Speaker 3: this beat, you know, which seems like this is something
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  Speaker 3: with music, right not with not has nothing to do
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  Speaker 3: with disease. Actually, it seems to affect and enhance movement
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  Speaker 3: in people with very serious motor disorders. It doesn't work
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  Speaker 3: for everybody, but for some people it really helps and
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  Speaker 3: therapies based on this can actually help bring back some movement.
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  Speaker 3: Obviously doesn't cure Parkinson's, but it can help and give
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  Speaker 3: people Parkinson's patients a way to feel holy again.
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  Speaker 2: That's awesome, that's really cool. I think I've seen some
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  Speaker 2: of those videos of some of those places where they're
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  Speaker 2: doing therapy and they've included the music component of it.
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  Speaker 2: And I when to bring back in a minute, head
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  Speaker 2: over to dementia in a second as well, because I
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  Speaker 2: know I've seen sometimes there's areas using music. But before
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  Speaker 2: we get to that, I'm going to bring you back
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  Speaker 2: for a second, back to Parkinson's and the areas of
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  Speaker 2: the brain that will highlight with music. Are we seeing
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  Speaker 2: We know Parkinson's one of the things is actually low dopamine.
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  Speaker 2: Do we see any kind of neurotransmitter change because of music?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, it's actually my colleague get in Montreal, Professor Robert
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  Speaker 3: Zatore and his colleagues have been doing a lot of
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  Speaker 3: work on music and dopamine and the role of dopamine
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  Speaker 3: in our experience of musical pleasure. And we now know
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  Speaker 3: that music strongly activates dopamine system when we enjoy music,
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  Speaker 3: and that's the reward side of dopamine. There's also a
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  Speaker 3: motor side of dopamine where dopamine plays a role in
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  Speaker 3: initiating movements, and that happens to a somewhat different brain
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  Speaker 3: pathway than the reward pathway. And with the Parkinson's patients
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  Speaker 3: are telling us is that there's probably an impact of
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  Speaker 3: music on this other dopamine pathway. And what's cool about
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  Speaker 3: music is people like music, and so it puts together
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  Speaker 3: movement and pleasure, and that's part of what motivates, I think,
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  Speaker 3: for us to move to music and gives us that
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  Speaker 3: sense of reward of popping along to the beat, even
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  Speaker 3: if you know we're not getting that reward from anybody else,
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  Speaker 3: like just sitting in our car or in our living room.
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  Speaker 4: I know.
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  Speaker 2: It's always amazing because if you look at you step
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  Speaker 2: back and you look at it functionally. I guess when
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  Speaker 2: you see a concert and you're thinking, what are you
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  Speaker 2: getting out of this? You're just jumping up and down?
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  Speaker 2: What it does? It really kicks that dopamine in and
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  Speaker 2: there's so much pleasure going on. It even seems like
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  Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm gonna take a wild guess, but
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  Speaker 2: it even seems like if you're around people, even maybe
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  Speaker 2: oxen toasin goes up.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there's interesting theories about that too, and endorphins.
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  Speaker 3: And this social piece is really interesting. You said, you know,
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  Speaker 3: when we're at concerts, and there is something about experiencing
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  Speaker 3: music socially that people seem to really enjoy, and especially
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  Speaker 3: when it comes to dance, people really.
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  Speaker 4: Like to do that with other people.
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  Speaker 3: A lot of people are perfectly happily listening to music
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  Speaker 3: on their own on their personal devices, but when they
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  Speaker 3: feel like dancing, most people kind of want to do
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  Speaker 3: that with other people.
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  Speaker 4: They're not just putting on.
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  Speaker 3: Music and dancing by themselves typically so, and this is
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  Speaker 3: actually one of the neat things about the dance, the
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  Speaker 3: effect of music on Parkinson's. There's actually a group in
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  Speaker 3: New York, the Mark Morris Dance Group. It started a
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  Speaker 3: dance for Parkinson's group, and it's hugely successful because not
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  Speaker 3: only does it give them the benefits of rhythm on movement,
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  Speaker 3: it gives them socialization, a chance to work towards something
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  Speaker 3: in this case of performance. And there's a wonderful film
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  Speaker 3: called I Think It's Capturing Grace about the dance for
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  Speaker 3: Parkinson's Pride started in Mark Morris Company and now spread
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  Speaker 3: around the country. And if you know somebody with Parkinson's,
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  Speaker 3: this is a wonderful thing because they take people that
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  Speaker 3: aren't dancers, and people in this film were not professional dancers.
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  Speaker 3: They were just ordinary people. But by going through this
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  Speaker 3: program of learning to dance with other parkinson patients, they
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  Speaker 3: overcome one of the biggest challenges of partners Parkinson's, which
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  Speaker 3: is the isolation social isolation that comes with that disease.
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  Speaker 3: So it's kind of both social, emotional and movement in
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  Speaker 3: terms of benefits.
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  Speaker 2: Professor of psych we both know how important social engagement is.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm gonna switch, I guess to a different
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  Speaker 2: part of the brain.
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  Speaker 1: Now.
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  Speaker 2: I can't remember where I saw. I'd have to forgive
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  Speaker 2: me for that, but I know there was somebody I
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  Speaker 2: was reading where they were doing using music, especially a
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  Speaker 2: nostalgic type of music with people with dementia and other
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  Speaker 2: memory issues are Nearcago disorders, and it seemed to help
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  Speaker 2: them in some capacity, maybe just from my remembering. Obviously,
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  Speaker 2: the dopamine hit again there. What have you seen anything
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  Speaker 2: regards to music and memory area.
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  Speaker 4: Of that nature. Oh yeah, that's a fascinating topic.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, it's certainly we all know intuitively that music
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  Speaker 3: has this profound power over our memory systems. We can
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  Speaker 3: hear a song that we loved in college and haven't
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  Speaker 3: heard it for twenty years, and it comes on the
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  Speaker 3: radio and we're singing right along, transported back to that
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  Speaker 3: time of life and the things that were happening, and
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  Speaker 3: who we were with and what we were feeling.
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  Speaker 4: What we were doing.
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  Speaker 3: You know, long before there was writing the stories, the
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  Speaker 3: great stories of the world, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the
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  Speaker 3: Bedas in India, the epics, the ballads, they were all
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  Speaker 3: sun you know, that's how people remember them. So music
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  Speaker 3: has this profound and ancient relationship to human memory. And
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  Speaker 3: what's kind of cool about modern research on this is
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  Speaker 3: the persistence of musical memory and light of some serious
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  Speaker 3: brain disorders like dementia. And you know, there's that film
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  Speaker 3: that was very I think you interviewed the director or
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  Speaker 3: producer of the film Alive Inside about patients with Alzheimer's
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  Speaker 3: dementia that hear music and sort of reawakens memories.
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  Speaker 4: And what's also interesting about this is musical.
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  Speaker 3: Memory and autobiographical memory can be very tightly related in
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  Speaker 3: the brain.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 3: The music you love in your youth is often tied
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  Speaker 3: to specific memories of what was going on at that
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  Speaker 3: time in your life, and so listening to that music,
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  Speaker 3: not only you don't just remember the music, you kind
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  Speaker 3: of reactivate some of the memories of that part of
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  Speaker 3: your life. And that's what's so interesting for these patients
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  Speaker 3: is can we use music to help them reactivate some
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  Speaker 3: of their memories when they can't seem to remember their
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  Speaker 3: families or other things that they spent their lives around.
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  Speaker 3: What does music give us access to help kind of
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  Speaker 3: reawaken some of those memories.
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  Speaker 2: That's fascinating stuff. And I guess one of the questions
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  Speaker 2: that popped out out of that where is it in
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  Speaker 2: the brain? Do we know where there where the memories
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  Speaker 2: holding these memories of music? Is it in the hippocampus
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  Speaker 2: somewhere else? Because silent?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so sailing. So I have a colleague at
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  Speaker 3: UC Davis, professor Peter Janata, and he has done some
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  Speaker 3: great work on this on the relationship between music and
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  Speaker 3: memory and autobiographical memory, and he's even done brain imaging.
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  Speaker 3: The hip campus is very important for laying down memories,
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  Speaker 3: but it's probably not where these memories are stored themselves.
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  Speaker 3: It interacts with many parts of the brain to help
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  Speaker 3: those parts of the brain lay down those memories. He
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  Speaker 3: found that there are regions in the frontal middle frontal
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  Speaker 3: parts of the brain seem particularly important for recalling music
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  Speaker 3: that you remember and associating it with autobiographical memories. So
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  Speaker 3: it's you know, probably the hippo campus and interaction with
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  Speaker 3: those frontal areas and other areas that gives us this
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  Speaker 3: rich experience. The more we learn about the brain, the
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  Speaker 3: more we realize that anything is complicated. As you know,
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  Speaker 3: remembering a piece of music is not handled by any
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  Speaker 3: one brain area. It's going to be a network of
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  Speaker 3: regions playing slightly different roles.
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  Speaker 4: And in this.
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  Speaker 3: Case, it looks like these medial frontal areas with one
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  Speaker 3: of these hubs where.
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  Speaker 4: Some of these key things come together.
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  Speaker 2: That's definitely one thing about when you study the brain,
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  Speaker 2: you get more questions and answers half the time. Yeah, people,
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  Speaker 2: I think people are starting finally to drift away of
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  Speaker 2: the how would you call it the polaroid photo type
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  Speaker 2: memory that we have or file folders. It doesn't seem
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  Speaker 2: to be working exactly like that anymore.
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  Speaker 3: No, I mean, we've known for a long time that
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  Speaker 3: memory is not like that. It's much more of a
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  Speaker 3: reconstruction that's influenced by all kinds of things, including what's
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  Speaker 3: happening in your life at the moment that you try
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: to remember something that can influence what you remember, and
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: suggestions can influence what you remember. And yeah, memory is
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: much more fluid and valuable than a photograph.
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  Speaker 2: It reminded me of an interview I did a while
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: back ago. Oh what was his name, doctor Kuntinanidish? Sorry,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: my friend, wherever you are listening, he's over in Greece.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: I think, oh, he's in London now, I think. Anyway,
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  Speaker 2: he was. We talked about psychology and nostalgia and one
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  Speaker 2: of the things always cracks me up. And I know
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: that this is kind of a shot in the dark methought.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: I throw it at you anyway, But if you ever
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: break up, you know, when you're young, for some reason,
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  Speaker 2: we start listening to all the sand songs, which kind
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: of strengthens our depression, I guess you could say, or
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: lack of happiness. At that time. We started listening to
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: these songs, and I remember asking him, so, why do
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: we do that? Why don't we torture ourselves instead of
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: listening something happy and we go into these I want
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: to age myself Shinead O'Connor type songs like Oh my God.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Did you see anything like that at all in your research?
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  Speaker 4: You know?
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  Speaker 3: I don't work on that myself, but I do know
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  Speaker 3: those people that are very interest than that, like Professor
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: David Huron at Ohio State, who's very interested in why
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: we're attracted to sad music. I wish I could pull
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: up his theory for you.
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  Speaker 4: I can't. We'll have to have him on your show.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, he has a theory about that, and I don't
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  Speaker 3: remember what it is, but I remember it was. He
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: thought it through very carefully because it's a puzzle. It's
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: a puzzle that's funny.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how about again to be another one of these
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: four fetchments and I'll bring you back to normal in
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: a minute. But how about epic music? I have a
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: couple of podcasts we talk a lot with military law enforcement,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: but even movies like Brave Heart, Gladiator, this kind of
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: an epic sound anything. Have you ever studied or anybody
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  Speaker 2: even know who's studied that. Why does that motivate us?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, there is there are people studying that.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, I have a wonderful colleague at Tufts University,
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: professor Frank Layman, and he's in the music department. He's
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: a music theorist, but he has been very interested in
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: epic music and why you know, He's actually studied a
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: lot of John Williams scores and he has a book
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  Speaker 3: I think called Hollywood Harmonies about this wow, you know,
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  Speaker 3: what is it about the structure of certain pieces of
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  Speaker 3: music that has that incredibly epic character to it? And
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: he really analyzes the nuts and bolts of the musical structure,
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: you know, the way a surgeon would analyze a you know,
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  Speaker 3: a human body, to look at the anatomy of the
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  Speaker 3: music and figure out what what are composers doing to
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: give us that sense of triumph for that huge expansiveness
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: that we look for in these kinds of epic soundtracks
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: that accompany you know, some of the films like Star
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Wars and some of these big blockbuster movies that are
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: trying to create this gigantic universe where epic things happen. So,
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: you know, and he's come up with some actual music
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: theoretic findings there that you know, I'm not in a
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: position to translate right now. But it's for people who
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: are music theory kind of nerves in your audience. That's
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: I highly recommend taking a look at Frank Lehman's work,
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: because he was interested exactly this question.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: It's interesting. Nothing's new under the sun. It's amazing how
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: much you how much your fingertips doctor? But sounds like, oh, yeah,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: I know this guy, I know this guy. Definitely well, yeah,
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: definitely been well exposed. I guess back to a more
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: normal type of questions. I guess we've heard a lot
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: about being able to listen to music to help you study.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: I can't remember that. Sometimes people say classical music all
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: what was that? Oh it's Baccarini. I think it was.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: It's supposed to to help with depression. Are any of
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: those valid?
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm glad you asked that, because.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: Basically, we're learning that music can have a real effect
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: on people in terms of attention and other cognitive functions.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: But it seems like there really is no one size
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: fits all answer to what music does that for you? You know,
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: the music that we are exposed to is a product
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: of our culture and our experience and our personal tastes
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: and so what works for you may not work for me,
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: and and in fact, even the act of listening to
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: music may be helpful for you and may be quite
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: distracting from me. So, for example, I find it impossible
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: to work when there's music in the background, as much
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: as I love music, if I'm trying to write, say,
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: for example, or do any kind of focused mental work
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: that can't call it that involves language. So there's you know,
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: personality issues. Some people need music to help them kind
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: of focus.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: Others are already.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: So hopped up on goofballs that they listen to music,
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: they'll just kind of go over the top and won't
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: be able to focus at all. So the game now
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: really is not kind of is realizing that there's no
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: single answer questions like this music help study. It definitely
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: helps some people, And the trick is understanding why do
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: those people get a benefit out of music and what's
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: going on in their brains when they get that benefit,
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: rather than just saying, is you know, composer X universally
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: good for studying.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: Subjective?
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Then yeah, subjective, but it's not there are real effects,
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: like the fact that it really works for this person
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: but not for that person. There's a basis for that,
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: and we can study that as scientists. We can say,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: what is it about this person's the way they hear things,
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: the way they process things that makes them respond to
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: music in a way that heightens their attention, And once
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: we understand some of the principles, we can go and
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: look for other people like that. It's a bit like
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: personalized medicine. You know, why does this person respond to
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: this drug and not to that drug. Why does this
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: person get a tremendous benefit from this therapy and this
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: person gets no benefit from this therapy? It's you know,
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: it's not that if you looked at fifty people and
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: twenty five got a benefit that was really substantial and
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: twenty five got no benefit. If you just zoomed out
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: and said, oh, you know, it only works for half
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: the people, let's throw.
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: This away, you're going to be missing something really important.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: There are twenty five people who really got a benefit
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: from the Therapy's what's different about them, What's different about
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: their biology, It's different about their brains. Why did they
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: get that benefit? That's where the future is right. We're
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: increasingly moving away from one size fits all solutions for medicine,
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: for psychology for so many things, and taking individual variations
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: seriously and studying its biological underpinnings.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Like I always say, life is more complicated than people think.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: That's so true.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: People like to make it sound like it's simple, but
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: it's I wish it was. I really wish it was.
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I talked to as UCI professor a while back.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: I can't remember, and she did along while I say
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: the lines we were just talking about now regards to
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: how music could affect your personality. I think she did
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: a study. I'm sure you've heard of her. She just
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: studies on rap music I think it was, and how
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: it influenced people. And I had a student a while back,
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: or go back, you did some research on I think
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: it was hard rock or something like that, and it's
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: relationship to aggression, anything on those two topics at all.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: Well, I think the persistent question is in that line
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: of work, is you know, to what extent does listening
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: to aggressive music make you aggressive versus simply reflect You're
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: an already aggressive kind of tendency that you have, you
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: know doesn't exacerbate.
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: Is it a reflection of you or is it shaping you?
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: And you know this debate goes back and forth, and
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: again it may be for certain people it's simply reflecting
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: what they feel, it's not making them any more aggressive.
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: But for others, maybe.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: It's actually promoting those thoughts in ways that lead to
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: those kinds of actions. That is a that's an interesting question,
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: and it's an old one. I mean, this goes back
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: to Plato. He really thought that listening to the wrong
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: kind of music was messing up the kids in his
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: you know, his day. So it's not a new question, right, So, uh,
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, we need we look for music
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: that expresses what we feel, and sometimes that can be
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: quite boisterous or even violent, I suppose. But if you
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: deny people that, you know, are they going to bottle
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: it up and express it in some other way?
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: You know? So sure, yeah, oh sorry, that's right.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Usually there's multiple pathways of causation, right.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: Well yeah, And and you know, it certainly is something
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: that parents, you know, over many generations have always thought
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: about you if you you know, you have a person
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: who listens to a lot of music that is hateful
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: towards other people, that is concerned, you know, in terms
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: of where we are in our world today, and we
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: should be talking about that.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting because I know some of your
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: research have been looking at the evolutionary side of music,
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: and it kind of goes along now that you mentioned Plato.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: I don't know, it's kind of hard to measure this
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: because you know, you can't go back one hundred years.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: I guess it'll be more of a conjecture and your
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: part to you do you see large changes in music
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: over the last centuries in the sense of maybe how
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: they affect us cognitively, or how they do you think
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: they could affect us cognitively, or how are we even
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: using music?
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: Well, music is certainly the huge change and how we
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: use music. It's so much more personalized these days. I mean,
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: when I was in college, you know, if somebody mentioned
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: their favorite song or their favorite artists, you probably had
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: heard of them. Now, you know, I have students in
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: my class to share their most meaningful songs, and very
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: most of the time the other students have never even
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: heard of the artists, much less the song. You know,
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: and then a lot of times spent listening to music
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: over your private headphones. You're not sharing music in the
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: same way that people used to have to share it
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: because you know, you had to hear it out loud
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: one hundred years ago, right or no headphones.
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you had to hire a.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: Live musicians and they're not going to sit around and
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: play for one person unless you're and even the king
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: would probably want to hear it with his or her buddies.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: So yeah, that's been a huge change, and music just
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: evolves continuously. It's you know, it's a deeply cultural product,
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: and what we consider music today one hundred years ago
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: would have really alarmed a lot of people probably, and
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: that's probably going to be true one hundred years from now,
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: you know for us, and I think people will listen
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: to stuff on hundreds from now that we would think wow,
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: is that even music, which is exactly what people one
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: hundred years ago would have probably said about some of
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: our music today. So it's moving target. But I do
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: think there are some fundamental biological brain mechanisms that support
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: music processing that you know, are deeply shared by all
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: human beings.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Interesting, can you name a couple of those?
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's things that are so fundamental that
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: we rarely even think about them. So let's just take
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: beat perception, like we don't think it's a big deal that.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: You know, when we hear with MKE music, we can
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: feel a beat and you know, tap along with it
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: or bob along with it. Doesn't seem to be effortful.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: You don't have to teach kids how to do this.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: They just kind of come to it. You see it
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: all over the world. And yet modern research suggests that
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: this this ability is actually very complex in the brain
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: in terms of all the different brain areas that have
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: to get coordinated to make this happen. And we don't
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: seem to share this sense of beat and rhythm with
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: many other animals, including our closest living relatives, the great apes,
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: which surprises people because people thought, wow, there's one aspect
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: of music we would share with other species in terms
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: of how we experience it and feel it. It's going
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: to be rhythm or beat. But they don't seem to
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: get beat in terms of music rhythm the way we do.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: They don't seem to respond to it. They don't seem
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: to move in time with it, and when we try
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: to teach them to move in time with it, they
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: do it very differently. We move to a beat predictably,
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: We're always predicting when the next beat's going to happen,
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: and that's.
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: Why we can move in time with it. So precisely.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: When we tap to a beat, our taps fall right
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: on the beat, makes it sometimes a little bit ahead,
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: or you know, sometimes a little behind, but very closely
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: aligned in time. And that's what allows us to play
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: in time with others and dance with others. Other primates,
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: when you try to train them to tap to a beat,
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: they can do it, but they always their natural tendency
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: is to tap a few hundred milliseconds after the beat,
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: like they're reacting or listening and reacting, not predicting, which
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: is so fundamentally different from what we do. And that's
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: what allows us to move in time together and dance together,
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: which some people think has been an ancient and important
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: part of human behavior for a long time.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: That's fascinating. That's fascinating. I've never even thought about that.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: I guess my last couple of questions here before we
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: wrap up again, folks, we're talking to doctor Annie Patel,
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: pat El, professor at Tuff's University. This book was called
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Music Language on the Brain. Doctor Patel, I guess my
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: last question would be any studies that really actually make
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: a comments. He reminded me of that. He reminded me
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: of Queen and we Will rock you. We talked about beats.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's by one of the more popular beats
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: I think of. I've heard almost every generation seems to
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: remember that one.
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the great one.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: But back to that, because anything that stood out to
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: you in the last few years in your research that
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: you said, wow, I never saw that coming.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: Well, let me talk a little bit about some of
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: the recent research I've been learning about. There was just
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: a conference called the Neurosciences and Music. It was held
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: in Denmark but also online for kind of the community
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: that studies music in the brain. This is a conference
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: that happens every three years the research community that focuses
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: on music in the brain. And I was hearing about
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: some really neat recent research on the power of music
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: and singing to help people recover language function after stroke. So,
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: strokes can often leave people a phasic. That's a problem
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: with language after stroke, and it can be quite devastating
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: if it leaves them with what's called non fluent aphasia,
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: where you just can't seem to get the words together
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: in sentences to communicate with other people and it's not
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: a lack of intelligence, and it's not a problem with
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: your mouth or your basic motor control. It's really cognitive
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: problems getting words together and out, and it's quite serious.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: There's a colleague in Finland, his name is Tepo Sarkamo,
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: who's been leading a neat research program using singing to
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: help people with this disorder, because it's based on an
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: old observation that sometimes people with aphasia with this condition
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: can still sing fluently even though they can't speak more
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: than a couple of words coherently. Typically it's older songs
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: they can sing fluently. So he got kind of started
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: these a phasic choirs where he got five to ten
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: phasics and their family members to come together and sing
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: both old songs but also learn a couple of new songs,
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: and then they were they've worked their way up to
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: a performance over the course of several weeks, so there
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: was an end goal and this apparent. This study was
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: wonderful because it had multiple beneficial effects. He did all
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: kinds of measurements before and after the therapy of both
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: of the phasics and the family members. He found that
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: the verbal fluency of a phasics improved in this as
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: a result of this therapy in terms of being able
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: to produce words, not just songs. He found that family
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: members reported an ease in the amount of burden of
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: care because of the emotional benefits that this provided to
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: the aphasic patients. As well, he saw structural changes in
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: the brains of these aphasic patients that seemed to correlate
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: with their enhanced language recovery. And so I just thought
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: this was a super neat study showing how music can
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: help bring back language after brain damage, and what an
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: important role the social police plays in this, because this
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: is not kind of where you're alone with a therapist
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: by yourself.
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: You're with others.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: You're doing a social activity that's aimed at making something
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: beautiful and presenting it to other people. It's deeply embedded
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: in what we think of as normal social behavior for humans.
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: And I think that's part of why it works as fast.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: That's great, that's inspiring, and comprise a lot of hope
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: for individuals too.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think we're going to be seeing more
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: of that in the future, and research based interventions using
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: music to help people recover from language problems or to
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: help them with memory problems. But to kind of get there,
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: we definitely need a lot of basic research on.
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: Why it works, how it works, who it works for, who.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: It doesn't work for, how to optimize those therapies to
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: benefit the people that can and will benefit from those therapies.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: Fascinating stuff. Fascinating well, doctor Patel, thank you so much
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: for taking the time to join us today.
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: That's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: A lot of fun questions, a lot of great research
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: being done by you and your group out there, which
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: truly appreciate it. You're helping society out quite a bit.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: I think people don't realize that that a lot of
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: times researchers are the behind the scenes heroes in a way, right,
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: You're helping a lot of people, and since it's sometimes
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: small population groups that we don't always pay attention to
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: in the news, it goes by the wayside, so definitely
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: like to highlight that fact. Doctor Annie Pattel from Tufts University. Again, everyone,
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: thank you for listening. Make sure to share, subscribe, and
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: hit that like button.