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♪ (music) ♪

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[Narrator] 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 doesné 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 we have so far mapped.

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In fact, 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 to help former congressman [ ] learn to speak again,

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and got a glimpse inside the brain of a two-time winning artist while he played,

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all to find out how music affects us.

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♪ (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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and then I'm going to listen to some music.

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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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♪ (music) ♪

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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 is red activity all over my brain,

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not just in one specific area.

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Twenty-five years ago, 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 imaging 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 to different parts of the brain

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and it stops at specialized processing units in auditory cortex,

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they track loudness and pitch and rhythm and [tambour] 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, snapping your fingers, clapping you hands;

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and cerebellum which mediates the emotional responses;

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the memory 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,

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the front and the back,

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the inside and the outside.

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♪ (music) ♪

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So what about a musicians's brain?

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To play a piece of music engages so many things:

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motor systems, timing systens, 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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♪ (music) ♪

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I'm Alex Jacob Robertson.

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I'm Nathan Glenn Robertson.

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We asked these 11-year old musicians

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to tell us what's going through their minds as they play.

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Some of the most important things are

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I think good posture,

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getting the note right,

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legato, staccato.

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[violin playing]

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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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[violin playing]

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[Narrator] 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 effects their development.

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The multi-tasking areas of their brains
understandable 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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Did you hear that?

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Changes in brain structures.

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They found that the brains of children
who have studied music

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cast 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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[emotional music]

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When you hear a piece like this

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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 is known
as the music for the dying swan in ballet.

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Well it might move ballerinas to dance
it inspires different reactions in others.
Some people get goosebumps, chills,
that weird tingly sensation that you get when
a great piece of music just hits you in the right way.
It's called frisson and not everyone gets it
but it turns out I do.
Now we're gonna have you listen
to some pieces of music.

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Okay

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When you experience a chill,

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if you do, I want you to just press
this space bar

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so we have an indication

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of when those sort of peak moments of
enjoyment are happening.

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Okay.

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Max 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 kind of 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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[dramatic music]

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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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Now full disclosure back in the day

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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

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between this pathway that connects the auditory regions
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 is stronger,

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there's more fibers,

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in that region in the people who get chills.

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Which means that 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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99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
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'll play a piece of music, a classical piece,

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and maybe half the people will get it.

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[Narrator] Then he plays this..

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Rolling Stone's Give me Shelter.

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Have you ever seen the movie 20 Feet from Stardom,

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the documentary?

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Oh about back up singers?

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Yeah, there's a part Where They Isolate
the vocals from Give me Shelter.

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♪from murder yeah ♪

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♪It's just a shot away ♪

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♪It's just a shot away ♪

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and I play that

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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

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made me think about it and I got that little
kind of thing at the back of neck.

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But why would that happen?
The high pitched notes that she hits
almost sounds like a scream and
it's very important ancestrally for us
to be able to pay attention
to a scream, figure out what's going on
and either run or fight, whatever we need to do.
[Narrator] So how come that manifests as pleasure?
Well it's because our pre-frontal cortex
the more rational, thinking part of the brain kicks in.
So you realize very quickly after you have
this really quick startle reflex
that there's nothing actually threatening
about the piece of music
that you're sitting in a safe space
with your headphones on and it's in that
reappraisal that we tend to think
of the pleasure responses emerging.
And whether you find listening to music
so pleasurable that you get chills
or you absolutely despise a song
it can produce absolutely fascinating
effects in the brain.
According to Levitan music we enjoy triggers
the brain's internal opiod system, yes, opiod system.
And just like the opioids that come in pill form
these chemicals make you feel good and help relive pain.
And music you don't like well that releases cortisol,
the notorious stress hormone.
But that's not even the half of what music
can do in the brain.
Can you turn on the lights?
[Narrator] When former Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords
was shot in 2011 the left side of her brain
was severely damaged leaving her struggling
to speak, a condition called aphasia.
Gabby are you frustrated?
[Narrator] But to get an idea of just how
powerful music's effect on the brain can be
watch this video.
You ready?
[Together] This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine.
That words that she'd been
struggling to say, light, can easily be in song.
Why would she be able to sing a word
when she's unable to say it?
What we know about the brain is that
the left hemisphere controls language
and there are many other parts of the brain
that have music access.
Music therapist Maegan Morrow's job
is to help patients use those other
pathways to regain language.
Sometimes I compare it to
being in traffic and you can't move
any further but you might need to exit
and take the feeder road to get you to your destination.
So music is basically like that feeder road
to the new destination.
Like a detour, so we know that music
can help us relearn things like speech
by accessing alternative pathways in the brain
and that learning to play music can help
strengthen brain connections.
But what about making music?
To make music is like, it's the language
of humanity, no matter where I go in the world,
if I'm playing something, it doesn't matter if
someone can't speak the language, if they're
into it they're into it.
[Narrator] This is Xavier Dphrepaulezz better known as
Fantastic Negrito.
We brought him to UCSF to meet Charles Limb
a neuroscientist who studies musical creativity.
The Duffler's up next.
[Narrator] To understand how Fantastic Negrito's brain
works when making music Dr. Limb had him
play on of his songs while going
through the fMRI.
[Fantastic Negrito singing]
so how did his brain respond?
The areas that process sensory and motor skills
along with sounds lit up, you can see them here.
Red and yellow, makes sense right?
But here's the really interesting part,
Limb asked him to improvise
to see what happens when he's creating
something totally original.
[Fantastic Negrito singing]
now watch what happens to his brain.
The areas that were active before
the ones that deal with motor skills
and sounds are even more active.
And see how there's way more blue
in the front of his brain?
That's the pre-frontal cortex
and it's associated with effortful planning
and conscience self-monitoring
and it's blue because it's less active.
We see that the pre-frontal cortex appears to be
really shutting down in these moments
of high creativity kind of like letting of
of these conscious self-censoring or self-monitoring
areas that normally are there to help control our output.
[Narrator] And Limb says it's about
more than just letting go.
You view it from perspective of survival
if human beings only could do memorized route responses
we'd be long gone.
It is not just the thing that happens in clubs
and in jazz bars, it's actually maybe
the most fundamental form of what it means to be human
to come up with new ideas.
[singing]
[Narrator] So music is so much more than notes
on a page, it can change the way we
think and speak and feel but is there
a limit to what science can tell us about music?
Just when I discover the answer to one thing
five new questions pop up that are more
interesting than the first and I've gained
an appreciation for how complex the music making
and music listening system is.
It's not demystified to me at all.
It's more mysterious than ever.
[signing]
[clapping]Some of the most important things are
I think good posture, getting the note right,
legato, staccato.
[violin playing]
For the violin you need to hold your hand
at the right place and you need to be in tune
and then you also have to have not only
the right intonation but the right sound
and then you also need to have great vibrato.
There's lot of things to think about.
[violin playing]
[Narrator] Back at USC researchers have been studying
kids who play music over the past five years
to see how it effects their development.
The multi-tasking areas of their brains
understandable lit up but they've seen other results too.
Music training over the course of five years
has had benefits in cognitive skills and decision
making, also had some benefits in social behavior
and we've also seen changes in the associated
brain structures.
Did you hear that?
Changes in brain structures.
They found that the brains of children
who have studied music cast stronger connections
between the left and right hemispheres
and that can make them better,
more creative problem solvers.
And then there's emotion.
[emotional music]
When you hear a piece like this
it's easy to understand why emotions
play such a big part in music.
This song by Camille Saint-Saëns is known
as the music for the dying swan in ballet.
Well it might move ballerinas to dance
it inspires different reactions in others.
Some people get goosebumps, chills,
that weird tingly sensation that you get when
a great piece of music just hits you in the right way.
It's called frisson and not everyone gets it
but it turns out I do.
Now we're gonna have you listen
to some pieces of music.
Okay
When you experience a chill,
if you do, I want you to just press
this space bar so we have an indication of
when those sort of peak moments of
enjoyment are happening.
Okay.
Max Sachs, a PhD candidate at USC wired me up
to measure my physiological response.
So when I'm feeling that kind of emotional connection
that has a physical manifestation
we'll see what my body is actually doing?
Exactly.
[dramatic music]
Alright, how was that?
That was, that had a lot of them.
We got them all.
Now full disclosure back in the day
I played the cello which might have something
to do with why that particular song effected me.
Nice hair.
But it turns out the brain is at work here too.
We processed the difference between
this pathway that connects the auditory regions
on the side of the brain here, to the emotional regions
and we showed that the tract actually that connects those
two regions is stronger, there's more fibers,
in that region in the people who get chills.
Which means that some people's brains
might have better communication
between what they hear and how they feel.
The music itself also plays a role in frisson.
Sachs uses different songs in his lectures
to see if students get it.
I'll say raise your hand when you get a chill
and I'll play a piece of music, a classical piece,
and maybe half the people will get it.
[Narrator] Then he plays this..
Rolling Stone's Give me Shelter.
Have you ever seen the movie 20 Feet from Stardom,
the documentary?
Oh about back up singers?
Yeah, there's a part Where They Isolate
the vocals from Give me Shelter.
♪from murder yeah ♪
♪It's just a shot away ♪
♪It's just a shot away ♪
and I play that and 90% of the people
experience chills sort of independent of where I go.
I have to tell you, bringing that up
made me think about it and I got that little
kind of thing at the back of neck.
But why would that happen?

154
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
The high pitched notes that she hits
almost sounds like a scream and
it's very important ancestrally for us
to be able to pay attention
to a scream, figure out what's going on
and either run or fight, whatever we need to do.

155
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
[Narrator] So how come that manifests as pleasure?

156
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Well it's because our pre-frontal cortex

157
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
the more rational, thinking part of the brain kicks in.

158
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
So you realize very quickly after you have
this really quick startle reflex

159
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that there's nothing actually threatening
about the piece of music

160
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that you're sitting in a safe space
with your headphones on and it's in that
reappraisal that we tend to think
of the pleasure responses emerging.

161
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And whether you find listening to music
so pleasurable that you get chills
or you absolutely despise a song

162
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
it can produce absolutely fascinating
effects in the brain.

163
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
According to Levitan music we enjoy triggers
the brain's internal opiod system, yes, opiod system.

164
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And just like the opioids that come in pill form

165
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
these chemicals make you feel good and help relive pain.

166
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And music you don't like well that releases cortisol,

167
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
the notorious stress hormone.

168
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
But that's not even the half of what music
can do in the brain.
Can you turn on the lights?

169
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
[Narrator] When former Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords
was shot in 2011

170
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
the left side of her brain
was severely damaged

171
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
leaving her struggling
to speak,

172
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
a condition called aphasia.

173
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Gabby are you frustrated?

174
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
[Narrator] But to get an idea of just how
powerful music's effect on the brain can be

175
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
watch this video.

176
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
You ready?

177
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
[Together] This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine.

178
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
That words that she'd been
struggling to say, light,

179
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
can easily be 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
that have music access.

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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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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 the 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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Like a detour, 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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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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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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[Narrator] 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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[Narrator] To understand how Fantastic Negrito's brain works when 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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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.

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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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now watch what happens to his brain.

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The areas that were active before
the ones that deal with motor skills and sounds

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are even more active.

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And 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
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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[Narrator] And Limb says
it's about more than just letting go.

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You view it from 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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[Narrator] 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 discover the answer to one thing

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five new questions pop up that are more

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interesting than the first and I've gained

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an appreciation for how complex the music making

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and music listening system is.

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It's not demystified to me at all.

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It's more mysterious than ever.

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[signing]

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[clapping]