Building the Musical Muscle

 Charles Limb is an Otolaryngology, he specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of ear, nose, throat, and head and neck disorders.  He has been working to observe the brains of improvising musicians and examine what parts of the brain constitutes the kind of deep creativity that occur when a musician is really in the groove.  Limb envisions applying theses research studies as a cochlear implant specialist, where one of his main goals is to improve how deaf individuals with cochlear implants perceive music.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) imaging was used to trail how the brain processes language and how disorders like stroke disrupt speech. “That led me to think that we could use this same approach to study people while they were doing musical things,” Limb says.  He first tested if musical training might affect the brain’s architecture, a hypothesis that was supported. When both musicians and non-musicians were presented with a series of rhythmic patterns, the portion of the left side of the brain associated with understanding language was activated only in musicians. Musicians, it seems, hear music as if it was a second language.

Limb believes that music embodies the pinnacle of hearing: Just as language, music is an art form that is intricate in structure, yet entirely abstract and free flowing. He impresses that we hear to enjoy the sounds of music. Biologically, the pinna collects the sound. The sound wave travels through the auditory canal, which funnels the sound to the eardrum causing it to vibrate. The eardrum then amplifies the sound by vibration of bones. It is in the middle ear where sound energy is converted into mechanical energy. The cochlea converts the vibrations into electrical impulses then sends it to the brain. The brain then interprets the impulses as sound. In deaf individuals music is perceived differently. Pitch perception is off by 2 octaves and sounds are not distinguished. For instance, a trumpet can easily be mistaken as a violin. Limb acknowledges that cochlear implantation has been phenomenal success. Nonetheless, the cochlear implantation detects and perceives only language perfectly, and provides minimum acoustics of music. Limb earnestly seeks to perfect the cochlear implantation, as he believes music is the pinnacle of hearing, and evidence from Beethoven has shown that the capacity of music remains after hearing loss.  

 Reference

Limb, Charles (Speaker). (2011). Building the Musical Muscle.www.ted.com. Retrieved on December 3, 2011.

Parker, Steve. (2007). The Human body: Ears, Hearing, and Balance. New York, NY:DK Publishing.