How Some Neurons in Your Brain Only Respond to Certain Noises
Smithsonian shares new research on how our brain processes noise and music.
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered that a specific set of neurons located in the auditory cortex in the brain respond to singing but not other sounds like speaking or instrumental music.
“This work suggests there’s a distinction in the brain between instrumental music and vocal music,” says study author Sam Norman-Haignere, who was formerly an MIT researcher and is now a professor of neuroscience at the University of Rochester Medical Center, to New Scientist’s Jason Arunn Murugesu.
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