Emotion

Musicians “switch off” the right temporoparietal junction when improvising

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Title of paper under discussion Expertise-related deactivation of the right temporoparietal junction during musical improvisation Authors Aaron L. Berkowitz and Daniel Ansari Journal NeuroImage, vol 49 (2010), pp 712–719 Link to paper (free access) Overview When handed a simple five-note mini piano keyboard, anyone – musician or non-musician – can improvise a melody of sorts. …

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Adding music to pictures flips brain from ‘cognitive’ to ‘feeling’ mode

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Title of paper under discussion The emotional power of music: How music enhances the feeling of affective pictures Authors Thomas Baumgartner, Kai Lutz, Conny F. Schmidt, Lutz Jäncke Journal BRAIN RESEARCH, 1075 (2006), pp 151–164 Link to paper (free access) Overview Although movie soundtracks are universally acknowledged as ‘emotion enhancers’ in the cinematic experience, it …

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Dissonant chords and unpleasant pictures tickle the same brain area

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Title of paper under discussion Emotional responses to pleasant and unpleasant music correlate with activity in paralimbic brain regions Authors Anne J. Blood, Robert J. Zatorre, Patrick Bermudez and Alan C. Evans Journal Nature Neuroscience, volume 2 no 4, April 1999, pp382-387 Link to paper (free access) Overview Anne Blood and her colleagues at McGill …

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Music at bedtime helps students sleep

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Title of paper under discussion Music improves sleep quality in students Authors László Harmat, Johanna Takács & Róbert Bódizs Journal Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol 62, issue 3, pp 327-335 (May 2008) Link to paper (free access) Overview Nearly 100 Hungarian students with sleeping complaints were divided into three groups. Two of the groups were …

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No musical ‘shivers’ without the left insula

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Title of paper under discussion ‘‘When the feeling’s gone’’: a selective loss of musical emotion Authors T D Griffiths, J D Warren, J L Dean, D Howard Journal J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2004; 75:341–345 Link to paper (free access – scroll down to last two pages) Overview Are different brain areas responsible for handling music perception …

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Clarinettists heighten emotion and extend phrases with their gestures

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Title of paper under discussion Performance Gestures of Musicians: What Structural and Emotional Information Do They Convey? Authors Bradley W. Vines, Marcelo M. Wanderley, Carol L. Krumhansl, Regina L. Nuzzo and Daniel J. Levitin Journal 5th International Gesture Workshop, GW 2003, Genova, Italy, April 15-17, 2003 Gesture-Based Communication in Human-Computer Interaction, pp 468-478 Link to …

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Music is processed in ‘visual areas’ of a blind musician’s brain

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Title of paper under discussion Cortical plasticity in an early blind musician: an fMRl study Authors David A. Ross, Ingrid R. Olson, John C. Gore Journal Magnetic Resonance Imaging, vol 21 (2003) pp 821–828 Link to paper (free access) Overview Blindness is often reckoned to be associated with a high level of musical competence, “perhaps …

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Chocolate, cocaine and Rachmaninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto excite common brain circuitry

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Title of paper under discussion Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion Authors Anne J. Blood and Robert J. Zatorre Journal PNAS, 25 September 2001, vol 98 no 20, pp 11818-11823 Link to paper (free access) Overview Using a scanning technique called positron emission tomography (PET) to detect changes …

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Interrupted cadences trigger musicians’ right hemispheres within 200 milliseconds

4 Comments / Auditory Discrimination, Emotion, Lateralisation, Musician, Neuroplasticity / By

Title of paper under discussion Early neuronal responses in right limbic structures mediate harmony incongruity processing in musical experts Authors Clara E. James, Juliane Britz, Patrik Vuilleumier, Claude-Alain Hauert, Christoph M. Michel Journal NeuroImage, Volume 42, Issue 4, 1 October 2008, Pages 1597-1608 Link to journal (open access) Overview Reckoning that interrupted cadences “should evoke a …

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Groovy music tickles pleasure and motor centres in the brain

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Title of paper under discussion The sensation of groove engages motor and reward networks Authors Tomas E. Matthews, Maria A. G. Witek, Torben Lund, Peter Vuust, Virginia B. Penhune Journal NeuroImage, Volume 214, 1 July 2020, 116768 Link to original paper (open access) Overview Researchers in Aarhus, Denmark, set out to investigate the effects of musical …

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