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♪ (guitar music) ♪
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(Peter) These days,
we 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,
and got a glimpse inside the brain
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of a two-time Grammy-winning artist
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) ♪
(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) 25 years ago,
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the idea was that language
is in 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
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shuttled off to different
parts of the brain it stops at
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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 in 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 the 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 a 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 multitasking 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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It also had some benefits
in prosocial 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 brains of
children who studied music
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have stronger connections between
the right and left 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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♪ (cello) ♪
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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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♪ (cello continues) ♪
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Some people get goosebumps, the 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 the 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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♪ (cello) ♪
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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
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that connects those
two regions, 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 some people's brains
might have better communication
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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," and I play a piece of music,
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a classical piece, and maybe
half the people will get it.
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(Peter) But then he plays this...
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♪ (rock music) ♪
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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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♪ (backing vocals only) ♪
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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
to be able to pay attention to a scream,
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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 pleasure 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 Levitin, 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 is to help patients use those
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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,
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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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 one 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, 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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♪ 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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- Stop.
- (laughter)
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Now watch what happens to his
brain. 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?
246
00:10:29,384 --> 00:10:30,835
That's the pre-frontal cortex,
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00:10:30,835 --> 00:10:32,837
and it's associated
with effortful planning
248
00:10:32,837 --> 00:10:34,516
and conscience self-monitoring,
249
00:10:34,516 --> 00:10:36,968
and it's blue because it's less active.
250
00:10:36,968 --> 00:10:40,495
We see that the pre-frontal cortex
appears to be really shutting down
251
00:10:40,495 --> 00:10:42,211
in these moments of high creativity,
252
00:10:42,211 --> 00:10:43,352
kind of like letting go
253
00:10:43,352 --> 00:10:46,249
of these conscious self-censoring
or self-monitoring areas
254
00:10:46,249 --> 00:10:50,242
that normally are there
to help control our output.
255
00:10:50,242 --> 00:10:53,168
(Peter) And Limb says
it's about more than just letting go.
256
00:10:53,168 --> 00:10:55,898
You view it
from a perspective of survival.
257
00:10:55,898 --> 00:10:58,832
If human beings only could do
memorized responses,
258
00:10:58,832 --> 00:11:00,318
we'd be long gone.
259
00:11:00,318 --> 00:11:04,132
It's not just the thing that happens
in clubs and in jazz bars,
260
00:11:04,132 --> 00:11:06,665
it's actually maybe
the most fundamental form
261
00:11:06,665 --> 00:11:09,336
of what it means to be human,
to come up with a new idea.
262
00:11:09,336 --> 00:11:12,271
♪ (blues) ♪
263
00:11:15,231 --> 00:11:18,234
(Peter) So, music is so much more
than notes on a page.
264
00:11:18,234 --> 00:11:21,374
It can change the way we think
and speak and feel.
265
00:11:21,374 --> 00:11:24,431
But is there a limit
to what science can tell us about music?
266
00:11:24,431 --> 00:11:27,193
Just when I discover
the answer to one thing,
267
00:11:27,193 --> 00:11:30,664
five new questions pop up
that are more interesting than the first,
268
00:11:30,664 --> 00:11:33,182
and I've gained an appreciation
269
00:11:33,182 --> 00:11:36,356
for how complex the music-making
270
00:11:36,356 --> 00:11:39,048
and music-listening system is.
271
00:11:39,048 --> 00:11:41,064
It's not demystified for me at all.
272
00:11:41,064 --> 00:11:42,880
It's more mysterious than ever.
273
00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:46,148
♪ La-la-la la-la-la ♪
274
00:11:46,148 --> 00:11:48,668
♪ La la la la-la-la-la ♪
275
00:11:48,668 --> 00:11:50,477
♪ La-la la ♪
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00:11:50,477 --> 00:11:53,288
♪ Lord... ♪
277
00:11:53,288 --> 00:11:55,119
♪ the people ♪
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00:11:57,515 --> 00:11:59,732
(applause and cheering)