WEBVTT

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
♪ (music) ♪

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
These days, you hear music all the time.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It wakes us up, motivates our workouts,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
keeps us company on our commutes.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It doesné matter what kind of music it is,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
music itself has the ability to affect our moods and our bodies

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in all sorts of ways.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We nod our heads, we sway, dance.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Music can give us chills,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
even make us cry.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Music activates every area of the brain we have so far mapped.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In fact, there's no area of the brain we know about

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that music doesn't touch in some way.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But what's behind all that?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What exactly does music do to us?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
To find out, I went to a whole series of tests

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
designed to measure my responses to musiC.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I met some kids whose brains may actually be changing,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
thanks to those hours of learning, practice, and performing.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I spoke with a therapist who used music to help former congressman [ ] learn to speak again,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and got a glimpse inside the brain of a two-time winning artist while he played,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
all to find out how music affects us.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
♪ (music) ♪

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So what's going on when we listen to music?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We visited the USC Brain and Creativity Institute,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where I had my head examined, literally,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to try to figure it out.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I'm going to go into this [FMRI] machine,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a tiny tube will surround me.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We'll get a baseline reading of my brain,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and then I'm going to listen to some music.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We're going to see how my brain responds.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Just close your eyes, relax,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and tey and get into the music as best you can, okay?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
♪ (music) ♪

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And here's what we saw.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
These are scans of my brain.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The areas in red are where my activity is above average;

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in blue, below average.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
As you can see, there is red activity all over my brain,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
not just in one specific area.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Twenty-five years ago, the idea was that language is on the left side of the brain

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and music is in the right side of the brain.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But now that we've got better quality tools,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
higher resolution imaging and better experimental methods,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we've discovered that's not at all right.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
How does that play out in different regions of the brain?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When music enters and then gets shuttled off to different parts of the brain

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and it stops at specialized processing units in auditory cortex,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they track loudness and pitch and rhythm and [tambour] and things like that,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
there's visual cortex activation when you're reading music as a musician

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or watching music

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
motor cortex when you're tapping your feet, snapping your fingers, clapping you hands;

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and cerebellum which mediates the emotional responses;

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the memory and the hippocampus,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
hearing a familiar passage,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
finding it somewhere in your memory banks