Study Reveals Human Brain Contain Specific Neurons That Respond to Music Alone
People hear music every day and the response toward it varies from time to time. It can affects one's mood, concentration, creativity and even the ability to learn. But how can a tune or a melody create so much impact upon hearing it? According to Independent, a pioneering study has surfaced and it says that musical appreciation is not just "piggybacking" on the capability to hear other everyday sounds. Instead, there are specific nerve cells in the brain that functions to respond only to music.
The "piggybacking" view has been the accepted belief for such a long time already but through a testing done by a group of researchers, it is found out that one particular set of neurons found in the auditory cortex of the brain fires out electrical impulses whenever a person is listening to music. This data was gathered through an experiment using medical brain scanners placed over a group of people listening to various kinds of sounds.
The source stated that the experiment composed of 10 volunteers who listened to 165 different sounds. It varied from parts of speech to bits of music to everyday sounds like chirps of birds, sound of electric fan, telephone ringing or footsteps. The researchers made use of a functional magnetic resonance imagining machine.
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GigWise detailed that the patterns of firing neurons produce rhythms of the brain. And even when just listening to a person talk, the particular neurons respond. Research also shows that brain rhythms also sync with musical sequences, which is why one will start to tap their foot or nod along to the beat when listening to the music—and it's because the brain follows along. The new study also suggests that music has played an essential part in the evolution of the human brain.
Josh McDermott, an assistant professor of neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said: "We found evidence for a population of neurons in the adult human brain that responds selectively to music."
As of now, further research is still to be done but the initial results suggests that there is in fact a dedicated center or "music box" in the brain.
