How Does Music Affect Your Brain? | Tech Effects | WIRED

♪ (guitar music) ♪

(Peter) These days,
we hear music all the time.

It wakes us up, motivates our workouts,

keeps us company on our commutes.

It doesn't matter
what kind of music it is,

music itself has the ability
to affect our moods and our bodies

in all sorts of ways.

We nod our heads, we sway, dance.

Music can give us chills,

even make us cry.

Music activates every area
of the brain that we have so far mapped.

There's no area of the brain we know about

that music doesn't touch in some way.

But what's behind all that?

What exactly does music do to us?

To find out, I went
to a whole series of tests

designed to measure my responses to music.

I met some kids whose brains
may actually be changing,

thanks to those hours
of learning, practice, and performing.

I spoke with a therapist who used music

to help former congresswoman
Gabrielle Giffords

learn to speak again,

and got a glimpse inside the brain

of a two-time Grammy-winning artist

while he played...

♪ (playing and singing) ♪

...all to find out how music affects us.

♪ (upbeat music) ♪

So what's going on
when we listen to music?

We visited the USC Brain
and Creativity Institute,

where I had my head examined, literally,

to try to figure it out.

I'm going to go into this fMRI machine.

A tiny tube will surround me.

We'll get a baseline reading of my brain.

Then I'm going to listen to some music,

and we're going to see
how my brain responds.

Just close your eyes, relax,

and try and get into the music
as best you can, okay?

♪ (classical music) ♪

(Peter) And here's what we saw.

These are scans of my brain.

The areas in red are where
my activity is above average;

in blue, below average.

As you can see,
there's red activity all over my brain,

not just in one specific area.

(Daniel) Twenty-five years ago,

the idea was that language
is in the left side of the brain

and music is in
the right side of the brain.

But now that we've got
better quality tools,

higher resolution neuroimaging,
and better experimental methods,

we've discovered that's not at all right.

How does that play out
in different regions of the brain?

When music enters
and then gets shuttled off

to different parts of the brain,

it stops at specialized processing units
in auditory cortex.

They track loudness and pitch and rhythm

and timbre and things like that.

There's visual cortex activation
when you're reading music as a musician

or watching music.

Motor cortex
when you're tapping your feet,

snapping your fingers,
clapping your hands.

And cerebellum which mediates
the emotional responses.

The memory system and the hippocampus,

hearing a familiar passage,

finding it somewhere in your memory banks.

Music is going on
in both halves of your brain,

the left and the right,
the front and the back,

the inside and the outside.

♪ (singing) ♪

(Peter) So what about a musician's brain?

To play a piece of music
engages so many things:

motor systems, timing systems,

memory systems, hearing systems.

There's all sorts
of brain activity happening.

It's a very robust thing to play music.

♪ (Chopin, "Fantaisie-Impromptu") ♪

I'm Alex Jacob Robertson.

I'm Nathan Glenn Robertson.

(Peter) We asked
these 11-year old musicians

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

Some of the most important things
are, I think, good postures,

getting the note right,

legato, staccato.

♪ (violin) ♪

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.

(Peter) Back at USC,

researchers have been studying kids
who play music over the past five years

to see how it affects their development.

The multi-tasking areas of their brains
understandably 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.

(Peter) Did you hear that?
Changes in brain structures!

They found that the brains of children
who have studied music

have stronger connections
between the right and left hemispheres,

and that can make them better,
more creative problem-solvers.

And then there's emotion.

♪ (violin) ♪

When you hear a piece like this...

♪ (Saint-Saëns, "Le Cygne") ♪

...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.

While it might move ballerinas to dance,

it inspires different reactions in others.

♪ (violin continues) ♪

Some people get goosebumps, the 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 going to have you listen
to some pieces of music.

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 peak moments
of enjoyment are happening.

(Peter) Matt Sachs,
a PhD candidate at USC,

wired me up to measure
my physiological response.

So when I'm feeling
that emotional connection

that has a physical manifestation,

we'll see what my body is actually doing?

Exactly.

♪ (Saint-Saëns, "Le Cygne") ♪

Alright, how was that?

That was-- That had a lot of them.

We got them all.

(Peter) Now full disclosure:
back in the day, I played the cello,

which might have something to do
with why that particular song affected 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,
which is 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 people who get chills.

(Peter) Which means 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 play a piece of music,
a classical piece,

and maybe half the people will get it.

(Peter) But then he plays this...

♪ (rock music) ♪

...Rolling Stone's Gimme Shelter.

Have you ever seen the movie
20 Feet from Stardom?

- The documentary about backup singers?
- Yeah.

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

♪ (backup vocals only) ♪

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 my neck.

(Peter) But why would that happen?

The high-pitched notes that she hit
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.

(Peter) 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 you get chills

or you absolutely despise a song,

it can produce absolutely
fascinating effects in the brain.

According to Levitin, music we enjoy

triggers the brain's
internal opioid system--

yes, opioid system.

Just like the opioids
that come in pill form,

these chemicals make you feel good
and help relieve pain.

And music you don't like?
Well, that releases cortisol,

the notorious stress hormone.

But that's not even half
of what music can do in the brain.

- Can you turn on the l-l-l-l-lights?
- L-l-l-l...

merry chicken.

(Peter) 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.

(whimpering)

Gabby, are you frustrated?

(Peter) But to get an idea
of just how powerful

music's effect on the brain can be,

watch this video.

You ready?

(both) ♪ This little light of mine,
I'm gonna let it shine ♪

(Peter) That word that she'd been
struggling to say, "light,"

came easily 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.

(Peter) Music therapist
Maegan Morrow's job

is to help patients use
those other pathways to regain language.

(Maegan) Sometimes I compare it
to being in traffic,

and you can't move any further,

but you might need to exit
and take a feeder road

to get you to your destination.

So music is basically
like that feeder road

to the new destination.

(Peter) 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?

♪ (upbeat music) ♪

To make music is like--

it's the language of humanity.

No matter where I go in the world,

man, 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.

(Peter) 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.

(Peter) To understand
how Fantastic Negrito's brain works

when he's making music,

Dr. Limb had him play on of his songs
while going through the fMRI.

♪ (Fantastic Negrito singing) ♪

(Peter) So how did his brain respond?

The areas that process sensory
and motor skills, along with sounds,

lit up.

You can see them here in 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.

♪ Like Star Wars in my head ♪

♪ It's like Star Wars in my head ♪

♪ I don't like this crazy sound ♪

♪ Makes me feel like I can't get down ♪

- Stop.
- (laughter)

(Peter) 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.

But 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 go

of these conscious self-censoring
or self-monitoring areas

that normally are there
to help control our output.

(Peter) And Limb says
it's about more than just letting go.

You view it
from a perspective of survival.

If human beings only could do
memorized responses,

we'd be long gone.

It's 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 a new idea.

♪ (blues) ♪

(Peter) 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 discovered
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 for me at all.

It's more mysterious than ever.

♪ La-la-la la-la-la ♪

♪ La la la la-la-la-la ♪

♪ La-la la ♪

♪ Lord... ♪

♪ the people ♪

(applause and cheering)