The Neuro of Music

Great post over at the Nature Blog network on the neuroscience of music and pleasure:

"Why do we enjoy music? Well, simply put, research shows that music elicits a number of physiological changes including increased release of dopamine from neurons originating in the ventral tegmental area, a mid-brain structure associated with the emotional reward [1]. This reward for music that we enjoy evokes an autonomic response subjectively referred to as "shivers down the spine." [2]. This is a robust and highly reproducible phenomenon."

I will have to catch up on those papers, but it is really interesting that the "shivers down the spine" you get from really good music is a real, physiological phenomenom. Makes sense. And if you've never felt it, you need to get some better music! Also note the parahippocampus is NOT correlated with pleasure, which makes sense considering it's proximity to the amygdala (fear response center). It also makes me wonder how people with Parkinson's experience music later in the course of their disease considering the lack of dopamine...

I would take issue with the implicit assumption that only "pop music" can produce such a response - although he does put the caveat of "consonant"(will have to read this more in-depth after finals!). I think it is much more tied to the emotional context of the music, state of mind of the listener and familiarity with the music being played. I can get the shivers from anything from Yo-Yo Ma to Tool and a lot in between. Most of the time it is based on my understanding of the music and/or lyrics, but the prerequisite, for me, seems to be quality musicianship.

For those floating around in the blogosphere... what music has given you the shivers?

Neuro

Neuroscience is like anatomy on steroids with less distinguishing characteristics and more interrelations. This makes it more challenging, but also more rewarding. And they said Term 2 would be easy!

In terms of the actual class at SGU, having quizzes where you must distinguish between the Anterior Commissure and Lamina Terminalis on a 200x200 pixel MRI with big thick lines drawn in MS Paint while at the same time labeling the Hypothalamus is the epitome of a throw-away question. Please, either don't label two things so closely together that the lines themselves cover the actual structures and surrounding features or just upload a higher resolution image - this doesn't help me learn anything.

Presentation complaints aside, I can already see the general direction of the class and the material fascinates me. The whole process of how your body is sensed and controlled through your cerebral hemispheres, as if your brain was a reflection of the body, is simply surreal. Though the myriad of structures can feel overwhelming, for each Netter card I memorize, I get information about structures with functions relating to language (Wernicke's Area, the S/I Colliculi's), sense of self (Precuneus), as well as the reflection of the body along the sensory cortex going down the post-central gyri (same goes for motor in the pre-central gyri). The latter formation is what gives rise to this guy which is a visual representation of the brain space we give to different parts of our body: In our case, Human evolution has strongly favored our hands - those nifty tools of ours - as well as our great communicators (larynx, tongue etc). There is a great run down of this on the NIH website with a nice detailed graphic.

For other animals, evolution obviously favored different body parts and structures based on selective pressures. Below is a representation of the mole rat, which has complete control over it's incisors.







This type of information makes for some fascinating science inspired artwork... would like to see more of it! Link if you know of some...

Blog Rounds

Edit Note: As pointed out by my former roommate and subsequently confirmed on Urban Dictionary, Gunner more appropriately means someone that will do anything to get ahead and purposely sabotage fellow students/workers to get ahead. The definition of gunner below better resembles geeky over-achiever.

Starting a new tradition to get myself to post more often: Blog Rounds. Since I am not allowed anywhere near patients for quite some time, I figured I could do a weekly webside routine with various blogs of the medical world. And yes, it was inspired by Grand Rounds except that theirs is interesting and GRAND. I'm just looking to consolidate the stories I found in Google Reader ;)

So let's begin:

The Blog that Ate Manhattan did a nice job of summarizing the med blogosphere's thoughts on the iPad as well as giving her own opinion. The tablet concept for hardware appears to have obvious uses in medicine, but the details will get worked out in the software realm.

Callous Callostomy meanwhile tackles the 'gunner' attitude head on. At any school there are people that see those that work hard academically and like to poke fun, it's the same at med school (here too). I have two thoughts on this: 1. The number of times someone uses Gunner is in direct proportion to the number of hours they are secretly studying their a** off while pretending not to be/care. 2. C'mon people! We are in med school - the harder you work the better doc you will be and people's lives depend on us knowing stuff, not just knowing enough to pass the boards.

Finally, just in time for my Neuroscience class is a nice post from Dr. Shock on the neuroscience of jazz. I plan on re-reading this once I have finished Neuro as looking at it now I see lots of terms already mentioned in class... that I should be studying!

That's all for this round... time to hit the handouts.