A short powerpoint covering the basic areas of the brain activated when listening to music

1. What Happens to our Brain
when we Hear Music
Karen Hayes
April 2022

2. Music is a part of our everyday lives.
We hear it in the womb, as a baby and toddler, through
childhood and into adult life. Zoltan Kodály was asked
when music learning should start and famously said "Nine
months before the birth of the child," moreover "nine
months before the birth of the mother."
We hear music. We have the
ability to play and sing music.
It has the capability to make us sad, happy,
energized and reflective to name but a few.
But what is happening in the brain whilst we
are processing these soundwaves?

3. Hearing and the Ear
A quick revision of the Hearing Pathways
when music is heard:
External Ear
Pinna - gathers sound, like an ear horn
Increases the magnitude of frequencies related to speech,
decreases those related to anything else. Air wave hit the
Timpanic Membrane which then vibrates. This is the
border between the External Ear and Middle Ear
Middle Ear
Ossicles – the vibrations push on these 3 tiny bones, which
push on the Oval Window changing the message from an
airwave to a fluid wave in the Inner Ear
Inner Ear
Cochlea - in this auditory prism sounds of different
frequencies are sent ot different parts of the spiral. Higher
frequencies cross lower down, lower do so higher up.
Cilia are linked by tiplinks – as the tip links are pulled open
they reveal an ion channel and ions come flooding into the
cell creating Electrial Impulses.
Click here for an online diagram

4. What Happens Next?
These are just some of the areas which are used in the processing of Music
Frontal Lobe, esp.
Prefrontal Cortex Thalamus
Broca’s Area
Wernicke’s Area
Hippocampus
Amygdala
Cerebellum Corpus Callosum
Nucleus Accumbens/
Ventral Striatum
Putamen/Pallidum
INNER EAR SENDS MESSAGE
TO THE AUDITORY CORETEX
(in the Temporal Lobe)

5. As the electrical impulses travel from the ear, the message that they carry is
transferred to many different areas of the brain. For musicians (esp.professional)
there will be even more areas which are activated as well as areas of the brain
which are more highly activated due to the training they have had and the
adaptations this has made to their brain(see here)
The main pathway is shown below.
Processing the music you hear
Cochlia
Brain Stem
Decoding of duration,
intensity & frequency
Thalamus
Integrates the sensory systems in the
body – prepares a response. Used in
high-level control in a performance
setting and the cortico-
thalamocortical network is highly
delveloped in musicians (1)
Auditory Cortex
(Temporal Lobe)
Processes the received
message

6. Broca’s Area
Emotive areas
Think of the last film you watched, the advert in the middle of the latest series
you are watching, that latest series you are watching! All of them will have music enhancing
them, why is this so impactful on us as humans? There are areas in the brain which are
specifically connected to the expressive quality of music – in you and the music.
Originally thought to focus on
word-based language, more
recent research has also shown
that this area is also used in
expressing music when there
are particularly complex
harmonies, even in instrumental
music (2)
Amygdala
As the area of the brain which is strongly
connected with emotion, music is as
strongly connected with the amygdala.
When you listen to a haunting melody and
feel a shiver down your spine, that is
currently believed to originate from the
Amygdala (3)
Nucleus Accumbens (Basal Ganglia)
An area where listening to music causes dopamine increases.
This area is the same one that illegal drugs act on – you really can be a music addict.

7. Motor responses
You know when you listen to a band, or you hear a great tune
on the radio and your foot starts tapping? This is showing you
that the electrical impulse which started with the drumstick
hitting the drum (or perhaps even in the brain of the performer
if you wish to go back further) has reached your Cerebellum
and caused a response. The Putamen will be busy processing
those rhythms from the drum and also helping co-ordinate your
body movement
When you get up to join in on the violin with the next track,
your Cerebellum is still being activated, this time for the muscle
memory response that you have spent hours, months and years
building up and the Putamen is still helping with that co-
ordination. Incidentally music increases the amount of
dopamine produces in this last area which is creating
interesting research into ways music can help Parkinson’s
patients keep moving (4)
You have also been storing the memories of this music and
those practice sessions in your Hippocampus where the
emotions connected to the music will make them easier to
recall.

8. It seems that there are many areas of the brain that music activates. Music can
make you feel happy, it can result in tears. A lot of research is ongoing in this
fascinating area and, as in all areas of fast-moving research – sometimes the
results take time. Some say that music developed as a proto language and use
examples of modern-day motherese as evidence to support this. Some results
in studies produce counter-weights to previous proclamations. However the
science moves forward, music seems to hold an incredibly important role in
our brains. And here is a little cheerful inducing tune:
HAPPY - Pharell in Bermuda