Subject: Re: Musical abilities are among the last to be lost in cases of From: Martin Braun <nombraun(at)TELIA.COM> Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 14:12:12 +0100Isabelle Peretz wrote: "When carefully tested, non-fluent aphasics produce as few words in singing and speaking. ..... However, it is true that aphasics enjoy singing much more than speaking." A key concept here seems to be "enjoy". And the controversies around these observations are very interesting, because they reflect a general difference between the music scholar's view on music and the biologist's view on music. Music scholars usually think that music perception is skill based, and that in this respect it is similar to language perception. According to this view, music processing should be equally vulnerable as language processing in cases of brain damage, as Robert Zatorre pointed out. >From a biologist's point of view, however, much of music appreciation is independent of skills. It is based on basic subcortical processes, which are indeed highly "immune" (Robert Zatorre) against brain damage. These areas, particularly in the brainstem, are the last to be affected by anesthesia, intoxication and degenerative disorders. Today we have data showing similar signs of appreciation of Mozart's music in rats as in humans. These signs have been measured in autonomic neural activity and in neurochemistry. Clearly, the rats had no language-like skills to perceive Mozart's music. But they still could show that their brains loved it. See this report: http://web.telia.com/~u57011259/Sutoo.htm (This link includes a link to background theory and a link to a sound sample of the music that was played to the rats). Martin ---------------------------- Martin Braun Neuroscience of Music S-671 95 Klassbol Sweden web site: http://w1.570.telia.com/~u57011259/index.htm