We might want to move along, as we're listening to the music, so it'll activate our motor system. We might also have a visualisation of the sound, or images that go with that, so it'll activate our visual system. If you think about a tune coming into your head, perhaps you're driving down the road, and you hear it on the radio and you want to identify what that tune is, of course, it comes in via our ears and it - at a very basic level - activates the auditory system, the sound processing system of the brain.įrom there, a whole lot of complex additional processes happen. That's because music involves many different networks or systems in the brain. When we're listening to music, what we see when we put people in the scanner is that large areas of their brain light up - both hemispheres. I think that's a really important thing to understand.
The experience of music is really a whole-brain activity. Okay, connect for us the experience of listening to music and our brain. The other area is more clinically focused and it looks at how we can use psychological strategies, including music, to rehabilitate people after brain injury, so looking at the relationship between mind and brain and what happens when we have a brain injury. One is in the broad area of cognitive neuroscience, and it focuses specifically on music neuroscience, so music in the brain. Professor Sarah Wilson sat down for a Zoom chat to talk about her work with Dr Andi Horvath. Her research program has advanced our understanding of the neural basis of human cognition and behaviour. Sarah is an internationally recognised expert in Cognitive Neuroscience and Clinical Neuropsychology. Professor Sarah Wilson is Head Of School, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. How does music affect our emotions according to science? With changes in environments, moods & scenarios - how is it that music impacts us so? I’m Chris Hatzis, let’s eavesdrop on experts changing the world - one lecture, one experiment, one interview at a time. It’s where expert types obsess, confess and profess. Eavesdrop on Experts, a podcast about stories of inspiration and insights.