Updates from Derren Brown and the Enigma Crew

“The idea that the brain changes and adapts according to how you use it, including through adulthood, is now widely accepted in psychology and neuroscience. Some of the most striking examples of this have come from studies of musicians. It’s been shown, for instance, that string and keyboard players have more neural tissue given over to the control of the hands and fingers than do non-musicians. However, little researched until now is the brain re-organisation associated with professional singing.

Like the playing of a musical instrument, singing involves skilled muscle movements – indeed, more than 100 muscles are used – but there are also some differences between singing and instrument playing. For example, you can watch your own fingers tap out a tune on a keyboard but you can’t ‘see’ your muscle coordination whilst singing.

Boris Kleber’s team had 10 professional opera singers, 21 singing students and 18 non-singer controls lie in a brain scanner and sing 6 phrases from the first stanza of the Italian aria ‘Cara mio ben’.

The most striking finding was that greater experience with opera singing was associated with more activation of the somatosensory cortex whilst singing. This part of the brain processes incoming signals from the body and the finding suggests that singing expertise is particularly associated with enhanced processing of where the vocal muscles are positioned in space. This makes sense given that you can’t ‘see’ yourself sing and must instead rely on feedback from the vocal muscles.”

Read more at BPS Research Digest