Given that you are not a drummer, you can perform fine motor tasks only with one hand and you will struggle to play different rhythms with both hands simultaneously. Drummers, however, “can do things that are impossible for untrained people”.
There is a plethora of research papers on how playing a musical instrument can change the brain via neuroplastic processes, but no one had looked specifically into drumming until Dr. Lara Schlaffke (Ruhr-University Bochum) stepped in. She tested 20 professional drummers who have played their instruments for an average of 17 years and currently practice for more than 10 hours per week.
Drummers present clear differences in the corpus callosum. This is a brain structure that connects the two hemispheres and its front part is responsible for motor planning. Drummers have fewer but thicker fibres in the connecting tract. This allows exchange of information between the hemispheres faster. The higher the measure of the thickness of the fibres in the corpus callosum, the better the drumming performance.
SNEAK PEEK
1. Getting old: One
Ageing is not a steady process taking place at a perfectly even pace. It shows three points occurring on average at ages 34, 60 and 78. These points are distinct times when the levels of many different blood-borne proteins change substantially. Who spotted the points?
1. Tony Wyss-Coray (Stanford University School of Medicine)
2. Getting old: Two
The feeling that “I am younger than my age” is not just a mindset. It has a physiological basis. Elderly people who feel younger than their age show fewer signs of brain ageing, compared with those who feel their age or older. Who established it, using MRI brain scans?
2. Dr. Jeanyung Chey (Seoul National University)
3. Mickey won’t work
Religious icons generate more devotion than fictional characters like Mickey Mouse because they are more ambiguous with less well-defined abilities. The ambiguity gives people space to form interpretations that are personally appealing. Who proposed the theory?
3. University of Otago psychologist Dr. Thomas Swan
4. Screams stand out
A scream could be an expression of fear or excitement. But, despite this, screams require a lot of force and cause the vocal folds to vibrate in a chaotic, inconsistent way. Listeners can readily distinguish a scream from other human calls. Who honed in on the distinction?
4. Emory University psychologist Harold Gouzoules
5. Unicellular mind
If single-cell organisms dominated Earth for about three billion years, they must have been adept at satisfying all the parameters of survival. Exposed repeatedly to the same stimulation, a single-cell organism can “change its mind” about how to respond. Who noted it?
5. Jeremy Gunawardena (Blavatnik Institute at HMS)
6. Familial depression
Having a parent with depression is one of the biggest known risk factors among children. A certain brain structure linked to reward, motivation, and the experience of pleasure is smaller in them than in those with no parental history of depression. Who found the difference?
6. Neuroscientist David Pagliaccio (VP&S, Columbia University)
7. The sweet spot
Scheduling increases our chances of engaging in leisure tasks but, on the flip side, we tend to enjoy it less. Structuring time less specifically would help –. for instance, “grabbing coffee in the afternoon” instead of “grabbing coffee at 3 pm”. Who proposed the sweet spot?
7. Gabriela Tonietto (Washington University in St. Louis)
8. Bullying, not always
Once a bully, always a bully? Well, in different settings and from one encounter to the next, the schoolyard bully might turn passive. Aggression doesn’t just depend on who you are and who is your target. Who showed that it depends on your previous interactions as well?
8. University of Guelph study PhD student Julia Kilgour
9. Listening to the DJ
Think of background electrical noise in the brain like static on the radio. There are two ways to hear the disc jockey (DJ). You can minimise the static or boost the DJ’s voice. Who contended that athlete brains minimise the background ‘static’ to hear the ‘DJ’ better?
9. Nina Kraus (Northwestern University)
QUIZ No. 933
1. Who showed that caffeine is literally in our blood after testing 18 batches of serum?
– Luying Chen
– Rudolph John Anderson
– Thomas F. Anderson
1. Luying Chen
2. Experience with objects alters the brain circuitry linked to recognition. Who noted it?
– Boyer Winters
– Jerome Seymour Bruner
– Robert Beno Cialdini
2. Boyer Winters
3. Who found that ochre used in ancient rock art came from a kind of iron-rich bacteria?
– Brandi MacDonald
– Edmund Snow Carpenter
– Ruth F. Benedict
3. Brandi MacDonald
4. Which bird-loving photographer was attacked by a kind of owl and lost his left eye?
– Eric John Hosking
– Sonia Handelman Meyer
– O. Winston Link
4. Eric John Hosking
5. Which virologist was influenced by the ideas of science in the works of H.G. Wells?
– Luc Montagnier
– Frank Macfarlane Burnet
– Robert Charles Gallo
5. Frank Macfarlane Burnet