Tuning the brain: How piano tuning may cause changes to brain structure
August 29, 2012 in Neuroscience
Playing the piano. Credit: Wellcome Images
(Medical Xpress)—Working as a piano tuner may lead to changes in the structure of the memory and navigation areas of the brain, suggests new research funded by the Wellcome Trust. In a study published today in the 'Journal of Neuroscience', scientists show that these structural differences correlate with the number of years of experience a piano tuner has.
Piano tuning involves listening to the sound of two notes played simultaneously (a two-note chord) and 'navigating' between sequences of chords in which one note is already tuned and the other has to be adjusted. Interaction between the sounds produced by the two notes produces a wobbling sound (known as a 'beat'). Tuners detect the frequency of this fluctuation (the 'beat rate') and adjust it so that the two notes are in tune. Since different combinations of notes in a chord produce different frequencies, tuners use these beat rates as a form of acoustic 'signpost' in the virtual 'pitch space' of a piano to help them tune subsequent notes in a systematic manner.
Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL and Newcastle University used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine how the brain structures of 19 professional piano tuners differed from those of 19 controls. The tuners, from across the UK, all tune pianos by ear, without the use of any electronic instruments.
Sundeep Teki from UCL, joint first author of the study, explains: "Piano tuning is a unique profession and this motivated us to investigate physical changes in the brain of tuners that may develop over several years of repeated acoustic practice. We already know that musical training can correlate with structural changes, but our group of professionals offered a rare opportunity to examine the ability of brain to adapt over time to a very specialised form of listening."
The researchers found highly specific changes in both the grey matter (the nerve cells where information processing takes place) and the white matter (the connections between cells) within a particular part of the brain: the hippocampus. These changes significantly correlated with the number of years that tuners have been performing the task. The changes were not related to age or to musical expertise. In fact, musical expertise and perfect pitch are not necessary for the basic skill practised by tuners.
"Perhaps surprisingly, the changes related to tuning experience that we found were not in the auditory part of the brain. In fact, they actually occurred in the hippocampus, a part of the brain traditionally associated with memory and navigation,"adds Dr Sukhbinder Kumar from Newcastle University, joint first author.
Similar changes related to navigational expertise have previously been demonstrated in a different part of the hippocampus in a study of taxi drivers by Professor Eleanor Maguire, also based at Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL.
Professor Tim Griffiths from Newcastle University, who led the current study, says: "There has been little work on the role of the hippocampus in auditory analysis. Our study is consistent with a form of navigation in pitch space as opposed to the more accepted role in spatial navigation."
More information: Teki S, Kumar S et al. Navigating the auditory scene: an expert role for the hippocampus. J Neuroscience 29 August 2012.
Provided by
Wellcome Trust
-
Changes in London taxi drivers' brains driven by acquiring 'the Knowledge', study shows
Dec 08, 2011 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Beat it: how the brain perceives rhythm
Mar 10, 2011 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Patients with amnesia 'live in the present'
Jan 16, 2007 |
not rated yet |
0
-
'Mind-reading' experiment highlights how brain records memories
Mar 12, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
IQ can rise or fall significantly during adolescence, brain scans confirm
Oct 19, 2011 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Motion perception revisited: High Phi effect challenges established motion perception assumptions
Apr 23, 2013 |
3 / 5 (2) |
2
-
Anything you can do I can do better: Neuromolecular foundations of the superiority illusion (Update)
Apr 02, 2013 |
4.5 / 5 (11) |
5
-
The visual system as economist: Neural resource allocation in visual adaptation
Mar 30, 2013 |
5 / 5 (2) |
9
-
Separate lives: Neuronal and organismal lifespans decoupled
Mar 27, 2013 |
4.9 / 5 (8) |
0
-
Sizing things up: The evolutionary neurobiology of scale invariance
Feb 28, 2013 |
4.8 / 5 (10) |
14
-
Why is zone 1 in liver more prone to ischemic injury?
May 23, 2013
-
How can there be villous adenoma in colon, if there are no villi there
May 22, 2013
-
How can there be a term called "intestinal metaplasia" of stomach
May 21, 2013
-
Pressure-volume curve: Elastic Recoil Pressure don't make sense
May 18, 2013
-
If you became brain-dead, would you want them to pull the plug?
May 17, 2013
-
MRI bill question
May 15, 2013
- More from Physics Forums - Medical Sciences
More news stories
New neuron formation could increase capacity for new learning, at the expense of old memories
New research presented today shows that formation of new neurons in the hippocampus - a brain region known for its importance in learning and remembering - could cause forgetting of old memories by causing a reorganization ...
Neuroscience
18 hours ago |
4 / 5 (4) |
0
Help at hand for people with schizophrenia
How can healthy people who hear voices help schizophrenics? Finding the answer for this is at the centre of research conducted at the University of Bergen.
Neuroscience
18 hours ago |
4 / 5 (2) |
2
Japanese research organizations contribute to Human Brain Project
One of the major frontiers of modern science is a comprehensive understanding of the human brain and its functions to guide the development of new technologies in information and communication. In a major announcement for ...
Neuroscience
19 hours ago |
3.7 / 5 (3) |
0
Controlling mood through the motions of mitochondria
(Medical Xpress)—Regulating the distribution of power in neurons is done by a system that makes the national electric grid look simple by comparison. Each neuron has several thousand mitochondria confined ...
Neuroscience
May 23, 2013 |
4.9 / 5 (9) |
0
|
Brain uses internal 'average voice' prototype to identify who is talking
(Medical Xpress)—The human brain is able to identify individuals' voices by comparing them against an internal 'average voice' prototype, according to neuroscientists.
Neuroscience
May 23, 2013 |
3.7 / 5 (3) |
3
|
Engineered cytomegalovirus protects monkeys from HIV equivalent
(Medical Xpress)—A new study by researchers in the US has shown that an ancient virus can be modified to help in the fight against the simian immunodeficiency virus SIV, which is the equivalent in monkeys ...
Researchers identify first drug targets in childhood genetic tumor disorder
Two mutations central to the development of infantile myofibromatosis (IM)—a disorder characterized by multiple tumors involving the skin, bone, and soft tissue—may provide new therapeutic targets, according to researchers ...
Hormone levels may provide key to understanding psychological disorders in women
Women at a particular stage in their monthly menstrual cycle may be more vulnerable to some of the psychological side-effects associated with stressful experiences, according to a study from UCL.
Going live: Immune cell activation in multiple sclerosis
Biological processes are generally based on events at the molecular and cellular level. To understand what happens in the course of infections, diseases or normal bodily functions, scientists would need to ...
Alzheimer's disease, the soft target of the euthanasia debate
(Medical Xpress)—The way Alzheimer's disease is portrayed by advocacy groups and the media is having undue influence on the euthanasia debate, according to a Deakin University nursing ethics professor.
Depression raises diabetics' risk of severe low blood sugar episodes
(Medical Xpress)—Patients with diabetes who are depressed are much more likely to develop episodes of dangerously low blood sugars, or hypoglycemia, than are those who are not depressed, a new study has ...
Aug 29, 2012
Rank: 3.7 / 5 (3)
Aug 30, 2012
Rank: not rated yet
Two notes represent two drummers. Lucky for everyone that 'drummers'(tuners) know the progressively increasing 'beat' - if one 'drummer'(note's partial) is playing (vibrating) slower or faster than the other 'drummer's'(comparative partial).
And your brain accommodates this physical phenomenon with any thought association independent of localization or 'musicality'.
All sound alters the structure of brain.
All structural changes have local and global 'consequences' for what humans label 'consciousness' or 'thought'.