Musicophilia:Tales of Music & the Brain by Oliver Sacks

There are a range of human reactions to music: from indifference to rapture, from "amusia" (the inability to recognize certain aspects of music) to a synesthetic response that imbues every musical note with its own color and taste. Our sensitivities to music can become dangerous-whether is from songs we simply can't get out of our heads or the non stop musical hallucinations a surprising number of us experience night and day. Yet far more frequently, music goes right: it can help people with Parkinson's disease who cannot otherwise move, give words to stroke patients who cannot otherwise speak, and organize people's memories who suffer from Alzheimer's or amnesia. It is clear that music has a unique power to alter the brain in remarkable and complex ways, and in ways we are only beginning to understand.

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Musician's Brain Are Different!

Musicians' brain are different

Brain scans have found that the corpus callosum, the contection but the two halves of musicians’ brains tends to be significant enlarged in comparison the corpus callosum found in the brains of the non-musicians. A number of other differences between the brains of musicians and non-musicians have been found, including enlargements to the cortex, auditory and motor parts of the brain. Another finding was that music tends to be processed in the left hemisphere of musician’s brains in the same areas as language, whereas the right hemisphere tends to be responsible for this task in the brains of non-musicians.READMORE>>>

Oliver Sacks’ book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain discusses these findings, and other music and language-related cases, including one of a man who after being struck by lightening, developed an overwhelming urge to play the piano and to compose music, and felt that he was actually tuning in to the music of heaven.