Music: The only food the auditory cortex craves

Music is a universal language and it is usually said to be the food that fills all souls. In an article written in the New York Times by journalist Natalie Angier, it is demonstrated that music is much more than a hypothetical meal it actually owns a small place in our minds (which constitutes as our soul). 

The article states that for years scientist have attempted to find clear evidence of a music-specific region in the brain through conventional brain-scanning technology, but the quest to understand the neural basis of a quintessential human passion have failed (Angier,2016). So, up until this point all that is known about this neural mechanism, being the auditory cortex, is that it is situated in the temporal lobe, it is divided into three separates (primary, secondary, tertiary), and at a base level understanding it receives data from the ventral dissection of the medial geniculate complex. The auditory area is a significant part of the hearing process; its main function is to process sound along with its volume, pitch and location. It is essential to comprehend the spoken language and has specific areas which aid in that such as Wernicke’s for understanding of words and Broca’s for the ability to form coherent sentences (Cheour, 2014). There has never before been evidence that there was an actually distinction between other sounds and music.

Credits to : NeuroanatomyBlogspot

However, researchers at MIT have come up with a radical new approach to brain imaging that reveals what past studies had missed. By mathematically analyzing scans of the auditory cortex and grouping clusters of brain cells with similar activation patterns, the scientists have identified neural pathways that react almost exclusively to the sound of music — any music (Angier, 2016). Other specific sounds like bells, honks or animal noises left that specific circuit unfazed. 

This new discovery expands our knowledge in a particular way. It demonstrates that we, as scientist, still have a lot to figure out about brain connectivity and the underlying role that neural mechanisms play in them. In regards to this information being pertinent to the general public it demonstrates that music can be actually categorized as a form of speech, and for that to be concrete information should be very exciting because it leads back to understanding why we gravitate mostly towards the people with similar music tastes– we understand their language.

References:

Angier, N. (2016). New Ways Into the Brain’s ‘Music Room’. Retrieved April 30, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/science/new-ways-into-the-brains-music-room.html?_r=1

Cheour, M. (2014, May 11). Primary Auditory Cortex Functions. Retrieved May 01, 2016, from http://www.livestrong.com/article/165212-primary-auditory-cortex-functions/