The Ongoing History of New Music, episode 1061: Medical mysteries of music (6)

Here’s a simple question with a very complicated answer—and I’m not even sure we know the answer: why do we have music?

There’s no known evolutionary or biological need for it. We could probably exist as a species without it—but that would make life pretty dull.

Yet our brains come hardwired for music. There are at least six separate parts of the brain that deal with music, and they all work together. Let me give you some examples.

There’s the auditory cortex in the temporal lobe, which stretches across our brains just behind the ears. We use this for processing sound information, including pitch and melody, when it comes through our ears. But it also goes into action when we just mentally replay a song in our heads. It appears that the auditory cortex is where the bulk of our music memories live—our musical database, if you will.

It’s strongly connected to the hippocampus, which is the source of most of our memories—and memories are often tied to emotions. This explains why music can trigger strong feelings, and why a song can make us remember certain events.

Musical memories can even survive long after the rest of the brain has degenerated. There’s the medial prefrontal cortex, found on the inner surface of the frontal lobe just behind our forehead.

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When someone is afflicted with dementia or Alzheimer’s, this is one of the last parts of the brain to go. Musical memories can survive even when all other memories are wiped out.

There is so much wonderful stuff about music, the brain, and our bodies that’s fascinating. And if we know how it all works, we can devise and implement our own personal life hacks using nothing more than music.

You can see where this is going, right? I have a lot more on how and why music is essential to the human condition. Welcome to another edition–the sixth–of Medical Mysteries of Music.

Songs heard on this show:

• Out of Your Mouth, Music
• Capital Cities, Safe and Sound
• Nine Inch Nails, Head Like a Hole
• Eminem, Lose Yourself
• Third Eye Blind, Semi-Charmed Life
• Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication
• Nathalie/Sweetest Melody
• Coldplay, Viva La Vida
• The Smiths, Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want

Here’s Eric Wilhite’s playlist for the show.

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