Why does music have the profound effects it does on the human nervous system? Even Darwin wrestled with that question and came up baffled. HOW does music have the profound effects it does on the human nervous system? That is different question--an empirical question currently yielding to scholarly inquiries using methods of hypothesis testing that have only just become available. 30 years ago, one was obliged to either conduct experiments in psychoacoustics, or to measure peripheral responses of the autonomic nervous system, or to try to infer brain function from scalp electroencephalography [EEG]--a method from the 1930s that relies on pitifully weak head surface signals. Research on the neurobehavioral effects of music and sound has exploded since the advent of functional neuroimaging. What Dr. Koelsch and others (e.g., Bob Zatorre at McGill) have recently done is to employ advanced imaging in elegant experiments to investigate exactly what goes on in the head when one hears (or reads, or performs, or thinks about) music. If one has, for decades, been both deeply moved by music and deeply curious about why that happens, one dreamed of this day.
Brain & Music is a 2012 update of Dr. Koelsch's important 2000 essay on this subject. Although it is already somewhat dated, it is the best compact summary of the state of the art of which I am aware. It is, however, a textbook, not a beach read. Dr. Koelsch is not a science-popularizer, like the authors of some other very good books on this subject. He is a scientist, writing for those with scientific backgrounds. Perhaps the major stumbling block for many will be the neuroanatomy. Still, the later chapters are packed with knowledge and one could skip to them and still profit handsomely. Readers looking for a more accessible introduction to this thrilling field might prefer--for example--Dan Levitin's "This is your brain on music," or even Jourdain's old "Music, the brain, and ecstasy." But if one wished to teach an inspiring course on this new discipline, Brain & Music would probably be the go-to textbook.
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Jeff Victoroff, M.D.
The go-to textbook on a thrilling new domain of human discovery
Granskad i USA den 6 februari 2017
