Brain 'closes eyes' to hear music

Our encephalons can turn down our ability to see to assist them listen even harder to music and complex sounds, state experts.

A United States survey of 20 non-musicians and 20 musical music directors establish both groupings diverted encephalon activity away from ocular countries during hearing tasks.

Scans showed activity drop in these countries as it rose in auditory ones.

But during harder undertakings the alterations were less pronounced for music directors than for non-musicians, research workers told a Society for Neuroscience conference.

Imagine the difference between hearing to person talking in a quiet room, and that same treatment in a noisy room - you don't see as much of what's going on in the noisy room

Dr Jonathan Burdette Aftermath Forest University Baptist Checkup Center

The researchers, from Aftermath Forest University Baptist Checkup Center and the University of North Carolina, used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, which can mensurate real-time changes in encephalon activity based on the blood flowing to different countries of the brain.

Previous research have identified assorted parts of the encephalon involved in vision and hearing.

The experimentation involved 20 professional orchestral music directors or set leadership and 20 musically untrained students, all aged between 28 and 40.

While lying in the scanner, they were asked to listen to two different musical tones of voice played a few thousandths of a 2nd apart and place which was played first.

The undertaking was made harder for the professional instrumentalists than for the non-musicians, to let for the differences in their background.

What the men of science establish was that while activity rose, as expected, in the auditory portion of the brain, it correspondingly drop in the ocular part.

As the undertaking was made harder and harder, the non-musicians carried on diverting more than than and more activity away from the ocular parts of the encephalon to the auditory side, as they struggled to concentrate.

However, after a certain point, the music directors did not stamp down their brains, suggesting that their old age of preparation had provided a distinct advantage in the manner their encephalons were organised.

Finely-tuned brains

Dr Jonathan Burdette, who led the study, said: "This is like shutting your eyes to listen to music.

"Imagine the difference between hearing to person talking in a quiet room and that same treatment in a noisy room - you don't see as much of what's going on in the noisy room."

Another researcher, Dr Saint David Hairston, said that the survey showed just how flexible this ability was.

"How this runs can change with highly specialised preparation and experience," he said.

Dr Bahador Bahrami, from the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said the survey showed the difference in "brain organisation" between instrumentalists and non-musicians.

"It shows the chemical mechanisms developed in the encephalon in the human face of distraction. The encephalons of the music directors are highly tuned to tones."