9/16/2013

From perception to pleasure

In a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, there was an interesting review as titled above:PNAS Jun 18 2013 vol110 10430-10437.

It discusses of the neuroscientific findings about the mechanism how we get pleasure from music. It says that a cortical loop between temporal auditory areas and frontal cortices is important for memorizing musical information as working memory as well as for recognizing the structural regularities in musical patterns. The latter leads to expectancies of the following note/rhythm.

This review also tells that the mesolimbic striatal system is involved in reward, motivation and pleasure in music as well as the emotional activities. It is mediated by the doperminergic system. the author proposes pleasure in music arises from interactions between cortical loops mentioned above and this subcortical system responsible for reward and valuation.

I sighed deeply how far the neuroscience has gone in research for our mental activities. This reminded of our son studying these voluminous new insights in medicine. There must be much more knowledges medical students are required to be doctors. At the same time, I won't miss some hypothetical logics in these research works. One example is that some research takes sympathetic nerve system phenomena would represent the amount of pleasure, which looked to me too simplistic. Maybe, further studies would confirm or renew these findings. But this review is still stimulating to me at present. The direction the studies are heading to looks promising to me.

I am inpressed at the hypothesis that expectation for the following musical pattern is related with the resulting emotion of reward. They say that it could be a ground of the pleasure in music. The author also mention the parallelism between music and speech in evolution. If I could paraphrase speech to communication by CW, it is what I have thought of pleasure in CW conversation. Refer to this article We expect what will follow after certain conversational content on CW. If it synchronizes with the tempo of thinking, it always intellectually stimulating us. If our expectation goes right, we could be satisfied at that. In this situation, expectation may activate our doperminergic system which leads to the emotion of reward and pleasure as in the case of music perception. I am not sure if we could paraphrase the findings in music to CW conversation. But if it is applicable, there is a reason we compare CW to music as stated here.

The author introduces Darwin's words in his autobiography as follows. "If I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibl;y injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeeding the emotional part of our nature." I wonder, as a friend of mine told, if we could replace music to CW conversation in these impressive sentences. If our ancestors in CW conversation have been right in their naming CW as music, it might be not only an accidental idea but must be based on a inherent intuiton.

10 comments:

  1. Shin, on the way home from the hospital last night (Diana suffered an unusually severe seizure on Sunday eight days ago), I heard a most interesting radio interview of Billy Joel. Alec Baldwin, the actor, did the interview. It is very long and the conversation is fast and "in dialect" for some of the time, and would be difficult for a non-English speaker to grasp (at least some of it) however it was wonderful in that Joel speaks about the power of music in many forms. The overall thrust of the interview is the same as your summary above.

    Diana is stable, and is starting in-patient rehab today. I'm leaving soon for the hospital. All the best, and send good vibes (by CW of course!) Jim

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    1. Jim,

      Very sorry to hear about Diana. I hope no new bleeding. I wish her quick recovery with the rehab. I know how tough it is to go on rehab.

      This review is inspiring in deed. They also introduced an ancient flute made of vulture bone. The radioisotope study has revealed the era it was made as 40000 years ago. It was as old as the syntactic languages. It struck me that music had had such an old origin.

      Take care. Give my best wishes to Diana.

      Shin

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  2. Music, CW and Endorphins. When I was a long distance runner, we learned of endorphins. I am not a medical person, but we understood them to be natural, body created pain relievers. It was common in the running world to talk of being addicted to running. We all believed it to be an addiction to the pain reliever we generated naturally. Some months ago, you addressed the CW addiction. Many of my CW friends, Steve N6TT, Jack WA&HJV laugh at getting our CW "fix". Personally, I find myself anxious to get on the radio and having a great satisfaction after a long ragchew with a friend. Maybe your identification of CW as a form of music in our minds and how music satisfies a human need, brings an answer to CW addiction.

    More bizarre thinking from SouthWest Colorado

    Don

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    1. Don,

      You may be right. Though addiction sounds a bit ill meant among people, it could enhance and solidify our friendship. In that sense, we should be freely and proudly addicted with CW!

      But, it is necessary for us to consider if we aren't too much addicted, so that it bothers our routines!

      See you soon.

      Shin

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  3. I wonder if the link to music and brain memory goes way back before the evolution of human speech. Early humans would have been exposed to the sounds of nature such as the whistling wind, running water, singing of birds, calling of various animals, and other natural sounds. These often can be very musical in character. Perhaps that is why our brains respond so positively to musical sounds.

    73, Dennis W0JX

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    1. Dennis,

      This review refered to the old flute from prehistory era as I mentioned the reply to Jim N3BB. Maybe, speech came to human beings prior to music. It distinguished us from the other creatures. But, as you told, music seems closely related with nature and our ancestor's lives for sure. Music might be an abstract of those natural sounds in the beginning. Later on, it came to reflect our inner world.

      Shin

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  4. Shin

    A very interesting article. We seem to derive pleasure from music as a piece moves through a basic sequence of chords, variations and discords which are all resolved satisfactorily at the end. The early baroque dance forms are very pleasurable in this respect, being miniature arguments in sounds but always with a satisfying conclusion. Good conversation is similar, being a cooperative exercise leading to a successful resolution. Good CW QSO's follow along the same lines. There is a sense of completeness, which is pleasurably satisfying.
    Just a few thoughts from a layman. This discussion opens up a huge field of academic research.

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    1. John,

      Thanks for the comment. I am afraid I have forced you to do that in the last QSO. Anyway, you have described how a music lover gets pleasure from his inner world. He may share the same event in the mind as you described.

      I was surprised to read they tried to explain the process by neuroscientific terminology. The functions of limbic system or the relationship with doperminergic pathway was not clear when I was a med student. They are going ahead at a really fast speed.

      I still doubt they could explain how we are pleased or touched by music. I don't think they could quantify the pleasure with the amount of sympathetic nerve activation. They seem to base it on the variation in heart rate, repiratory rate or blood pressure. Even when we are deeply touched by a music, our blood pressure won't always change. Furthermore, science won't come into the domain of value in our life. The value won't be measured quantitatively.

      Your idea of pleasure from music reminded me of these facts again.

      Shin

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  5. John

    You were a glimmer in the recent BW contest. I was actually looking for you for a second conversation. But no such luck

    Don

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    1. John shows up on 30m or 40m around 12Z so far as I know. It is rainy season there. It gives them much noise as well as rain. It might be a challenge for you in CO to catch him at present. In a few weeks, it may pick up a little bit. Good luck.

      Shin

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