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♪ (guitar music) ♪
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(Peter) These days,
you hear music all the time.
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It wakes us up, motivates our workouts,
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keeps us company on our commutes.
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It doesn't matter
what kind of music it is,
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music itself has the ability
to affect our moods and our bodies
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in all sorts of ways.
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We nod our heads, we sway, dance.
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Music can give us chills,
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even make us cry.
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Music activates every area
of the brain that we have so far mapped.
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There's no area of the brain we know about
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that music doesn't touch in some way.
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But what's behind all that?
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What exactly does music do to us?
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To find out, I went
to a whole series of tests
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designed to measure my responses to music.
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I met some kids whose brains
may actually be changing,
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thanks to those hours
of learning, practice, and performing.
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I spoke with a therapist who used music
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to help former congresswoman
Gabrielle Giffords
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learn to speak again,
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and got a glimpse inside the brain
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of a two-time Grammy-winning artist
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while he played...
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♪ (playing and singing) ♪
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...all to find out how music affects us.
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♪ (upbeat music) ♪
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So what's going on
when we listen to music?
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We visited the USC Brain
and Creativity Institute,
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where I had my head examined, literally,
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to try to figure it out.
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I'm going to go into this fMRI machine.
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A tiny tube will surround me.
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We'll get a baseline reading of my brain.
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Then I'm going to listen to some music,
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and we're going to see
how my brain responds.
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Just close your eyes, relax,
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and try and get into the music
as best you can, okay?
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♪ (classical music) ♪
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(Peter) And here's what we saw.
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These are scans of my brain.
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The areas in red are where
my activity is above average;
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in blue, below average.
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As you can see,
there's red activity all over my brain,
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not just in one specific area.
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(Daniel) Twenty-five years ago,
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the idea was that language
is on the left side of the brain
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and music is in
the right side of the brain.
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But now that we've got
better quality tools,
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higher resolution neuroimaging,
and better experimental methods,
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we've discovered that's not at all right.
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How does that play out
in different regions of the brain?
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When music enters
and then gets shuttled off
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to different parts of the brain,
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it stops at specialized processing units
in auditory cortex.
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They track loudness and pitch and rhythm
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and timbre and things like that.
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There's visual cortex activation
when you're reading music as a musician
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or watching music.
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Motor cortex
when you're tapping your feet,
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snapping your fingers,
clapping your hands.
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And cerebellum which mediates
the emotional responses.
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The memory system and the hippocampus,
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hearing a familiar passage,
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finding it somewhere in your memory banks.
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Music is going on
in both halves of your brain,
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the left and the right,
the front and the back,
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the inside and the outside.
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♪ (singing) ♪
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(Peter) So what about a musician's brain?
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To play a piece of music
engages so many things:
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motor systems, timing systems,
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memory systems, hearing systems.
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There's all sorts
of brain activity happening.
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It's a very robust thing to play music.
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♪ (Chopin, "Fantaisie-Impromptu") ♪
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I'm Alex Jacob Robertson.
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I'm Nathan Glenn Robertson.
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(Peter) We asked
these 11-year old musicians
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to tell us what's going through
their minds when they play.
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Some of the most important things
are, I think, good postures,
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getting the note right,
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legato, staccato.
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♪ (violin) ♪
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For the violin, you need to hold
your hand at the right place,
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and you need to be in tune,
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and then you also have to have
not only the right intonation
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but the right sound,
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and then you also need
to have great vibrato.
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There's lot of things to think about.
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(Peter) Back at USC,
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researchers have been studying kids
who play music over the past five years
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to see how it affects their development.
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The multi-tasking areas of their brains
understandably lit up,
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but they've seen other results, too.
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Music training
over the course of five years
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has had benefits in cognitive skills
and decision making,
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also had some benefits in social behavior,
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and we've also seen changes
in the associated brain structures.
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(Peter) Did you hear that?
Changes in brain structures!
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They found that the brains of children
who have studied music
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have stronger connections
between the left and right hemispheres,
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and that can make them better,
more creative problem-solvers.
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And then there's emotion.
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♪ (violin) ♪
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When you hear a piece like this...
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♪ (Saint-Saëns, "Le Cygne") ♪
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...it's easy to understand why emotions
play such a big part in music.
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This song by Camille Saint-Saëns
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is known as the music
for The Dying Swan in ballet.
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While it might move ballerinas to dance,
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it inspires different reactions in others.
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♪ (violin continues) ♪
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Some people get goosebumps, chills.
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That weird tingly sensation that you get
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when a great piece of music
just hits you in the right way?
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It's called frisson,
and not everyone gets it.
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But it turns out I do.
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Now we're going to have you listen
to some pieces of music.
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When you experience a chill, if you do,
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I want you to just press this space bar
so we have an indication
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of when those peak moments
of enjoyment are happening.
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(Peter) Matt Sachs,
a PhD candidate at USC,
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wired me up to measure
my physiological response.
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So when I'm feeling
that emotional connection
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that has a physical manifestation,
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we'll see what my body is actually doing?
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Exactly.
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♪ (Saint-Saëns, "Le Cygne") ♪
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Alright, how was that?
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That was-- That had a lot of them.
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We got them all.
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(Peter) Now full disclosure:
back in the day, I played the cello,
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which might have something to do
with why that particular song affected me.
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Nice hair!
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But it turns out the brain
is at work here too.
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We processed the difference
between this pathway
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that connects the auditory regions,
which is on the side of the brain here,
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to the emotional regions,
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and we showed that the tract
actually that connects those two regions
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is stronger.
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There's more fibers in that region
in people who get chills.
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(Peter) Which means
that some people's brains
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might have better communication
between what they hear and how they feel.
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The music itself also plays
a role in frisson.
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Sachs uses different songs in his lectures
to see if students get it.
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I'll say, "Raise your hand
when you get a chill,"
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and I play a piece of music,
a classical piece,
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and maybe half the people will get it.
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(Peter) But then he plays this...
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♪ (The Rolling Stones, "Gimme Shelter") ♪
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Rolling Stone's Gimme Shelter.
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Have you ever seen the movie
20 Feet from Stardom?
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- The documentary about backup singers?
- Yeah.
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There's a part where they isolate
the vocals from Gimme Shelter.
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♪ (backup vocals) ♪
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I play that, and 90%
of the people experience chills,
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sort of independent of where I go.
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I have to tell you, bringing that up
made me think about it
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and I got that little kind of thing
at the back of my neck.
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(Peter) But why would that happen?
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The high-pitched notes that she hit
almost sounds like a scream,
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and it's very important ancestrally for us
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to be able to pay attention to a scream,
figure out what's going on,
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and either run or fight,
whatever we need to do.
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(Peter) So how come
that manifests as pleasure?
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Well it's because our pre-frontal cortex,
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the more rational thinking part
of the brain kicks in.
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So you realize very quickly,
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after you have
this really quick startle reflex,
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that there's nothing actually threatening
about the piece of music,
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that you're sitting in a safe space
with your headphones on,
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and it's in that reappraisal
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that we tend to think
of the pleasureable responses emerging.
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And whether you find listening to music
so pleasurable you get chills
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or you absolutely despise a song,
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it can produce absolutely
fascinating effects in the brain.
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According to [Levitan], music we enjoy
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triggers the brain's
internal opioid system--
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yes, opioid system.
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Just like the opioids
that come in pill form,
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these chemicals make you feel good
and help relieve pain.
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And music you don't like?
Well, that releases cortisol,
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the notorious stress hormone.
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But that's not even half
of what music can do in the brain.
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- Can you turn on the l-l-l-l-lights?
- L-l-l-l...
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merry chicken.
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(Peter) When former Congresswomen
Gabrielle Giffords was shot in 2011,
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the left side of her brain
was severely damaged,
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leaving her struggling to speak,
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a condition called aphasia.
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(whimpering)
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Gabby, are you frustrated?
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(Peter) But to get an idea
of just how powerful
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music's effect on the brain can be,
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watch this video.
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You ready?
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(both) ♪ This little light of mine,
I'm gonna let it shine ♪
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(Peter) That word that she'd been
struggling to say, "light,"
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came easily in song.
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Why would she be able to sing a word
when she's unable to say it?
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What we know about the brain
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is that the left hemisphere
controls language,
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and there are many
other parts of the brain
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that have music access.
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(Peter) Music therapist
Maegan Morrow's job
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is to help patients use
those other pathways to regain language.
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(Maegan) Sometimes I compare it
to being in traffic,
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and you can't move any further,
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but you might need to exit
and take a feeder road
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to get you to your destination.
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So music is basically
like that feeder road
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to the new destination.
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(Peter) Like a detour.
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So we know that music
can help us relearn things like speech
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by accessing alternative
pathways in the brain
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and that learning to play music
can help strengthen brain connections.
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But what about making music?
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♪ (upbeat music) ♪
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To make music is like--
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it's the language of humanity.
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No matter where I go in the world,
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man, if I'm playing something,
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it doesn't matter if someone
can't speak the language--
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if they're into it, they're into it.
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(Peter) This is Xavier Dphrepaulezz,
better known as Fantastic Negrito.
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We brought him to UCSF
to meet Charles Limb,
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a neuroscientist
who studies musical creativity.
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The Duffler's up next.
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(Peter) To understand
how Fantastic Negrito's brain works
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when he's making music,
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Dr. Limb had him play on of his songs
while going through the fMRI.
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♪ (Fantastic Negrito singing) ♪
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(Peter) So how did his brain respond?
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The areas that process sensory
and motor skills, along with sounds,
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lit up.
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You can see them here in red and yellow.
Makes sense, right?
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But here's the really interesting part.
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Limb asked him to improvise
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to see what happens when he's creating
something totally original.
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♪ (Fantastic Negrito singing) ♪
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♪ Like Star Wars in my head ♪
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♪ It's like Star Wars in my head ♪
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♪ I don't like this crazy sound ♪
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♪ Makes me feel like I can't get down ♪
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Now watch what happens to his brain?
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Stop!
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(laughter)
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Now watch what happens to his brain.
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The areas that were active before,
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the ones that deal
with motor skills and sounds,
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are even more active.
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But see how there's way more blue
in the front of his brain?
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That's the pre-frontal cortex,
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and it's associated
with effortful planning
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and conscience self-monitoring,
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and it's blue because it's less active.
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We see that the pre-frontal cortex
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appears to be really shutting down
in these moments of high creativity,
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kind of like letting of of these conscious
self-censoring or self-monitoring areas
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that normally are there
to help control our output.
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(Peter) And Limb says
it's about more than just letting go.
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You view it
from a perspective of survival.
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If human beings only could do
memorized route responses,
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we'd be long gone.
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It is not just the thing that happens
in clubs and in jazz bars,
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it's actually maybe
the most fundamental form
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of what it means to be human,
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to come up with new ideas.
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(singing)
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(Peter) So music is so much more
than notes on a page.
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It can change the way we think
and speak and feel.
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But is there a limit
to what science can tell us about music?
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Just when I discovered
the answer to one thing,
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five new questions pop up
that are more interesting than the first,
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and I've gained an appreciation
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for how complex the music-making
and music-listening system is.
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It's not demystified for me at all.
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It's more mysterious than ever.
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(singing)
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(applause)