Dr. Charles Limb was recently in a feature by Wired Magazine's Tech Effects: "How Does Music Affect Your Brain? Every Imaginable Way".
The Tech Effects video examines the areas of the brain that is affected by music. Examination upon the subject suggests that the brain is affected by music in all areas, and not just in the left hemisphere as previous believed.
From the article:
But singing or playing something you know is different from composing on the fly. We also wanted to get to the bottom of improvisation and creativity, so we linked up with Xavier Dephrepaulezz—who you might know as two-time Grammy winner Fantastic Negrito. At UCSF, he went into an fMRI machine as well, though he brought a (plastic) keyboard so he could riff along and sing to a backing track. Neuroscientist Charles Limb, who studies musical creativity, helped take us through the results and explain why the prefrontal cortex shuts down during improvisation. "It's not just something that happens in clubs and jazz bars," he says. "It's actually maybe the most fundamental form of what it means to be human to come up with a new idea."
Charles Limb, MD, is a Sooy Professor, Chief of Otology/Neurotology, Director of the UCSF Douglas Grant Cochlear Implant Center and Medical Director of Cochlear Implantation at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.
