Musical language

2001/04/23 Carton Virto, Eider - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Anatomia/Fisiologia

Despite being a prominent part of human culture, the perception of music remains a great mystery. The human being is able to differentiate the music from the randomized notes, with rules similar to those we use to know how to build sentences. The rules of music vary from culture to culture and it is not clear to what extent they have been learned and to what extent they are their own, that is, genetically programmed. People from different cultures agree to say that something is music, and that is why it is believed that these laws are integrated into the brain from birth. In this sense, a research that will be published in the May issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience places the laws of music in the same region of the brain that governs the syntactic laws of language.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Neurosciences in Leipzig used magnetoencelography (MEG). Each volunteer was made to hear simple musical chords and during that time they measured the electrical activity of the brain. Chords followed the rules of western music, but sometimes the final note was bad. Then, in the area of Broca an extraordinary performance was measured. When the chord followed the rules of music in the Broca area there was no response, but breaking the rules did.

The Broca area governs language-related activities, specifically syntax. We use this area to identify in a sentence if the words are in the right order. So far the area of Broca has been considered a very specialized area in language, but it can perform more functions. According to researchers at the Max Planck Institute, the Broca area has a more general role: to govern complex information related to the sounds that follow the rules. These sounds can be musical notes, words, etc. It is known that the exercise of music increases linguistic capacity, and this is because the researchers of Max Planck, in his opinion, work the same neuronal mechanism.

Research has shown that an area previously considered exclusively linguistic is not as specialized. The ultimate goal is to learn how language-related brain regions work to prepare treatments for people with language problems.