Music Memories Stored In Different Part of Brain Than Other Memories

An anonymous reader writes "Scientists have long believed that the ability to learn and appreciate music was stored in a different part of the brain than other types of memories. Now, researchers in Berlin think that they have concluded that theory. Dr. Christoph J. Ploner, Carson Finke, and Nazli Esfahani at the Department of Neurology at the Virchow campus in Berlin, Germany have examined a man who has lost all of his memories but has retained his ability to remember and learn songs."

Comments

The Original Work

[hutsell]

The Summary links to a (somewhat useful) fluff review by the Medical Daily Web Site (and will hit the visitor with 37 cookies). Fwiw, readers at Slashdot may prefer bypassing it by going the Cell's Current Biology Web Site where they'll be able to find the Authors' Original Summary or perhaps the Full Text instead.

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you're advocating labotomising a load of people with the hopes of raising the statistical significance...

Screw statistical significance, this is obviously a source of unauthorized copies of musical compositions without compensation to the rights holders!

BURN IT OUT.

Might be something

[Anonymous Coward]

My grandfather has very advanced Alzheimers. He's been to the point for a while where he can't recognize family and doesn't have much to say about anything. However, in the 40's & 50's, he was a musician (played harmonica in a jazz-standards harmonica band). Through the 80's & 90's, he had a recording studio in his house and kept his music alive through multitracking himself. He definitely built his music into parts of his brain that haven't been ravaged by the disease.

Given a harmonica, he can bring back those songs, almost note-perfect.

I've also wondered if it's possible that music (or the ability to play) gets pushed into some sort of muscle memory rather than memory in the brain. As a musician myself, I know I can think about other things as I play things that are super-well-rehearsed. My fingers just somehow find the right notes.

Re:Might be something

[Ragzouken]

I wonder if you could prepare yourself for Alzheimers by writing and learning songs about all your important memories

Re:Might be something

[ryanw]

I wonder if you could prepare yourself for Alzheimers by writing and learning songs about all your important memories

I wonder if you could prepare yourself for Alzheimers by writing and learning songs about all your important memories

That reminds me of what the north American Indians had done. I would imagine there are songs of ancient time passed along due to this type of memory being the most protected.

Makes you wonder if there is something to the notion of singing angel references in the bible and why people sing in churches.

I have always found it so fascinating at how prevalent music is in our culture and profound an impact music has made on our history and makes up "who we are". Just about every kid in America is defined by a band or song or type of music. Just about every era is depicted by a musical theme.

It is almost completely correlated of advancements in music relate to advancements in technology.

Interesting.

Re:sigh

[Knuckles]

Reminds me of Scott Adam's Spasmodic Dysphonia, and how he could not speak normally, but sing and speak in rhyme. http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/scott_adams_fixes_own_brain_can_now_speak/
It's a different disease, but similar in the way that music is treated different by the brain.