Brain Defect Found in Tone-Deaf People
A missing brain circuit may explain why some people can't keep a tune.
Emily Singer 08/18/2009
- 1 Comment
Tone-deaf people--those who can't hold a tune--appear to be missing a specific neural circuit, according to research published today in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Researchers used a variation of MRI called diffusion tensor imaging to compare neural circuits--specifically those between the right temporal and frontal lobes--in the brains of people who are tone-deaf and those who are not.
According to a press release from the Society for Neuroscience, which published the research,
This region, a neural "highway" called the arcuate fasciculus, is known to be involved in linking music and language perception with vocal production.The arcuate fasciculus was smaller in volume and had a lower fiber count in the tone-deaf individuals. More notably, the superior branch of the arcuate fasciculus in the right hemisphere could not be detected in the tone-deaf individuals. The researchers speculated that this could mean the branch is missing entirely, or is so abnormally deformed that it appears invisible to even the most advanced neuroimaging methods.
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lackawack
1 Comment
"TONE DEAFNESS"
This may very well be true, as far as it goes, but having dealt with this seeming anomaly professionally over many years, I have never found it incurable. I successfully trained people to sing and secure jobs, whether they thought they were tone deaf or not. I forbade people from saying "tone deaf," as in my experience it is only an apparent not a real phenomenon propagated by well-meaning adults repeating this myth to unfortunate children who then may be permanently stunted. If you think about it, the expression is a contradiction in terms. It may just as well be that the brain defect is caused by the repetition of the myth itself.
dci
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