Singing-Responsive Part Of The Brain Discovered By Neuroscientists

Almost every human civilisation has the ability to engage with and understand music. Whereas other animals exhibit musical activities such as bird singing, humpback whale calls, or bonobo vocalisations, the musical cognition appears to be evolutionary unique within the animal kingdom.

A recent study has discovered that singing has a different neurological signature when compared to speech or instrumental music, providing greater insight into the brain's interaction with music.

Taking a glimpse at the brain, on the other hand, is no easy task. Researchers employed a technique termed electrocorticography (ECoG), in which electrodes are inserted within the skull to capture electrical activity from the brain, to gain a precise image of what occurs in people's brains when they hear noises.

Since the electrodes are located straight on the brain, unlike electroencephalography (EEG), and they assess electrical task rather than where blood is flowing in the brain, which would be a substitute for neural responses, the information collected from ECoG is much more accurate than other methods of measuring brain activity as functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI does this.

Because placing electrodes directly on the brain is an invasive technique, researchers obtained data from epilepsy patients who were already having surgery to manage seizures over a period of years.

Patients with epilepsy frequently have electrodes implanted in their scalps to monitor their neurological activities for a few days preceding surgery. If the patients agree, they can participate in research in which their brain activity is monitored while they execute specified tasks during that period.

Observing to 165 regularly heard sounds, ranging from the vibration of a cell phone to pouring liquid to a guy conversing to typing, was the challenge in this case. Music with singing and instrumental music without vocalisation were both included in this blend of sounds.

Researchers discovered a unique population of neurons that responded exclusively to singing, which differed from the brain representations of instrumental music and speaking in general.

The scientists observed that these findings show that music is represented by numerous unique neuronal populations, each of which is selective for different features of music, with at least one of them responding exclusively to singing.

The researchers explore in the publication about the qualities of singing that distinguish it as a different category that requires its own neuro-dynamic signature.

Josh McDermott, a co-author of the paper and an MIT cognitive neuroscientist said that this strategy of merging ECoG with fMRI is a substantial methodological development.

The researchers paired their ECoG data with fMRI data from a prior study using the same methods, giving them a better sense of where the brain activity was occurring.

The study provides neuroscientists with a better understanding of how our brains represent musical nuances. Although issues about how cerebral music and song preference arose throughout our development or evolution remain unanswered, the unique technique of merging ECoG and fMRI data should aid future research in answering these problems.