Do Brains Process Melodies and Lyrics Separately or Together

Does the brain process the lyrics of a song separately from the music, or are the two elements processed as one? Daniela Sammler of the Max Planck Institute and a team of scientists may have uncovered the truth about the human brain. The group observed an MRI brain scan of a person listening to music, in order to identify when regions of the brain were processing just music and just lyrics. There were also some parts in which the music and lyrics were being processed together. Prior to their experiment, they were aware that people with aphasia (who are not able to speak), are still able to "hum a tune". This suggests that music and lyrics are each processed independently. Sammler believed that if she were to alter the tune of a song, but keep the same lyrics, the inactive areas of the brain would be processing the lyrics (and vice versa). Areas of the brain that were inactive when both the tune and the lyrics remained the same were believed to be processing both.

The group conducting the experiment wrote 6 different sets of songs to determine if 12 volunteers were having different brain functions. Some songs had different melodies, but had the same lyrics. Another set had different lyrics, but the same melodies. In a third set, all the songs had different lyrics and melodies. From the MRI scans, the team was able to see that one part of the brain, the superior temporal sulcus, was mainly responsible for responding to the songs. In the middle of the STS, the lyrics and melodies were being processed as a single, uninterrupted signal. Though in the front of the STS, only the lyrics seemed to be processed, while the melody was nowhere to be found. The team did not find the portion of the brain for processing the melodies, possibly because there may be no individual process for them in an average brain (although experienced musicians may have this process).

After the experiment was completed, Sammler concluded that the brain first processes the music and lyrics together. Then, Sammler explained, a more complex process is used to decode the significance of the lyrics, and the music is treated separately. "The more they are processed, the more they are separated" she says. She argues that the level of inactivation in the superior temporal sulcus was not what would be expected if the music and lyrics were, in fact, being processed at the same time.

Although Sammler has come to her conclusion, there are still varied opinions among the researchers and other scientists. Martin Braun of Neuroscience of Music is not convinced that the brain is ever processing both the music and lyrics at once. "Activation of a particular brain area by different stimuli doesn't imply that these different stimuli are integrated. The stimuli might just have a similar effect on the area." he argues. If the truth is discovered, it should be a major factor in gaining further knowledge about the brain.


Sources
http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn18626/dn18626-1_536.jpg
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18626-music-and-lyrics-how-the-brain-splits-songs.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=life

By Emily Siegel and James Buchsbaum

How Does The Brain Process Songs

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Over Protective Parents

Over Protective Parents

By Alex Scheman and Amanda Shepherd

Overprotective and controlling parents may mean well, but in the long run could be slowing down their child's brain growth which are linked to mental illnesses. Children with parents who are highly protective or neglectful may be more likely to psychiatric disorders which are also related to defects in part of the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that concerns behavior, learning, judgment and personality. To test this, Kosuke Narita of Gunma University, Japan, scanned the brains of 50 people in their 20s and told them to fill out a questionare concerning their relationship with their parents throughout the first 16 years of their life. The questionare was called the Parental Bonding Instrument and was known internationally to unravel relationships between children and their parents.
Narita and his team discovered that children with overprotective parents had less grey matter in the area surrounding the prefrontal cortex than those who had healthy parent-child relationships. The grey matter is part of your nervous system that is in your brain. An interesting observation was that neglectful fathers, not mothers, stimulated less grey matter. This part of the brain develops during childhood and abnormalities there are common for people with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. Narita thinks that an over release of stress hormone cortisol, either from neglect or too much attention, and the reduced making of dopamine due to poor parenting causes the grey matter growth to stop.
Stephen Wood, who studies adolescent development at the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre in Australia, challenges this. He claims that these children may be born with abnormalbilites and other mental illnesses thus causing a rocky parent to child relationship. This brings up the potencial for a reverse order variable. Wood also points out that the test excluded people with a lower status and economic class, which may be contributing factors of childhood. These observations have opened up possible data flaws in the experiment. Although this test might not have been a success, the experiment opened up the eyes of many people in the parental and scientific community.

This is pointing to where the prefrontal cortex of the brain is. This is the part of the brain that concerns personality, judgement, behavior and learning.


Acknowledgements: none


Sources:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18633-mom-and-dad-stop-stifling-me--its-damaging-my-brain.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=life
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&client=firefox-a&hs=hhy&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=define%3A+prefrontal+lobe&btnG=Search
http://www.shockmd.com/wp-content/dorsolateral-prefrontal-cortex3.jpg

Over Protective Parents

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IVF Babies have High Risk of Diabetes, Obesity and other Metabolic Disorders

In 1978, the first test tube baby was born. A test tube baby is created through the process of In Virto Fertilisation (IVF), which is when egg cells are fertilized by sperm outside the womb. Scientists extract the ova (egg) from the ovaries of the woman. They then put the egg in a liquid with the sperm, which allows the egg to be fertilized.

Factors that affect the result of the IVF include the age of the woman, the normalcy of the uterus and semen quality, the success or failure of fertilization, and the number of embryos transferred. Now, more than three million babies are born through IVF. Risks have increased from about one in 15,000-20,000 to one in 4,000 cells.

First clues of problems with babies born through IVF was in 2001 with animal cloning studies. Scientists realized that in IVF there was a higher chance in offspring syndrome (abnormalities) and heart defects. Since they used the same procedures with animals, they predicted that it would affect babies too.

Though most test tube babies are born healthy, a large group are at a risk for low birth weight, which is associated with obesity, hypertension and type 2 diabetes (high blood sugar). At Temple University School of Medicine, Carmen Sapienza, a geneticist, is observing to groups of children. One group is born naturally, and the other is born through IVF. Sapienza was especially interested to see a chromosomal modification in the children born through IVF. Found out that 5 to 10 percent of modifications were in test tube babies. Sepienza says that these chromosomal modifications altered nearby genes, and that several of these genes express the metabolic disorders, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.

After the egg is fertilized, the embryos are either killed purposefully or accidentally, or frozen. Many people believe that IVF is inhuman and wrong. But others believe that infertile people must be able to have children. The survival rate of each embryo is 36% for a mid-aged woman (30-50).

Acknowledgments:
-http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=assisted-reproduction-genetics
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_fertilisation
-http://images.google.com/

By Dominic, Vahimir, and Giancarlo

Ivf Babies Have High Risks Of Diabetes, Obesity And Other Metabolic Disorders

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Mini Labs and Plant-Based Vaccines Look to Stop Next Pandemic

Last year, the H1N1 virus, and it's rapid worldwide spread showcased the global system's inability to swiftly and effectively distribute vaccines for newly discovered strains of influenza. In fact, the first H1N1 vaccines were distributed in October of last year, even though the first cases were reported that April. Project GreenVax, which is being led by the Texas Plant-Expressed Vaccine Consortium, looks to fix this problem before another possible pandemic develops.

Part of the reason why the H1N1 vaccines took so long to be distributed is that the process used to create them was very inefficient. Chicken eggs were used to create most of the vaccines; doctors would slightly open an egg and inject the virus into the fluid surrounding the embyro. The virus multiplies for a few days, until the eggs are opened again to remove the virus, purify it, and prepare it for use in a vaccine. This process takes up to 2 weeks in total, and doesn't produce a large number of vaccines. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, it would take 900 million eggs to produce 300 million vaccines.

The scientists behind Project GreenVax believe that they are able to create vaccines at a much more productive rate, and much quicker using plants. By using essentially the same process, just substituting plant leaves for chicken embryos, it is possible to reduce the time needed to create the vaccine and increase the number of vaccines that could be made. The only problem is that, despite more than a decade of research, there still haven't been "any approved vaccines made using the plant-based approach".

This is most likely because of the fundamental differences between plant cells and animal cells. However, Project GreenVax is devoted to finding a way to use plants to create a more effective method of creating vaccines. They have a combined $61 million in funding, and start research next week.

NOTE: The powerpoint should be up sometime before Wednesday