WEBVTT

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♪ (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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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

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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 winning artist
while he played...

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( )

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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,

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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 neuro-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

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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 [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,

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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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(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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♪ (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 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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(violin)

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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
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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(Peter) 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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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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(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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While it might move ballerinas to dance,
it inspires different reactions in others.

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( )

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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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Okay.

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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

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so we have an indication

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of when those peak moments
of enjoyment are happening.

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Okay.

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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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(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:

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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
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 the people who get chills.

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(Peter) Which means
that some people's brains

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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

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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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(Peter) Then he plays this..

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( )

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Rolling Stone's Give me Shelter.

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Have you ever seen the movie
<i>20 Feet from Stardom</i>?

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The documentary about back up singers?

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Yeah.

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There's a part where they isolate
the vocals from Give me Shelter.

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♪ ( ) ♪

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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
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,

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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 [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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And 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 the half of what music
can do in the brain.

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Can you turn on the lights?

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(Peter) When former Congresswomen
Gabrielle Giffords

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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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Gabby, are you frustrated?

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(Peter) But to get an idea

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of just how powerful
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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(together) 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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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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(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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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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(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 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.

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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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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

00:11:33.412 --> 00:11:39.278
for how complex the music-making
and music-listening system is.

00:11:39.278 --> 00:11:41.294
It's not demystified for me at all.

00:11:41.294 --> 00:11:43.594
It's more mysterious than ever.

00:11:43.594 --> 00:11:45.695
(singing)

00:11:57.745 --> 00:11:59.962
(applause)