Charles J. Limb might have been a jazz saxophonist. He grew up in a musical family and showed early signs of talent. He idolized John Coltrane and, as a student at Harvard, directed a jazz band. Although he ultimately went to medical school, he chose his specialty (otolaryngology) in part because of his musical interest. As a hearing specialist and surgeon at Johns Hopkins Medical Center, he performs cochlear implants in patients to restore hearing and enable the deaf to appreciate music. His sensibility and passion as an artist continue to inform his research. At least half of his studies during the past 10 years have focused on regions of the brain activated during moments of deep creativity. As he puts it, he wants to understand what went on in Coltrane’s head when he performed brilliant improv on his sax night after night.

Limb and National Institutes of Health neurologist Allen R. Braun have developed a method for studying the brains of highly skilled jazz musicians while they are creating music. Subjects play on a nonmagnetic keyboard as they lie in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine that takes pictures of their brain. Then the scientists compare neural activity during improvisation with what happens when playing a memorized piece. Limb can also interact with the musician in the scanner by playing on an external keyboard—or, as musicians put it, exchanging riffs.

1 Comments

1. 1. Bruce Voigt 10:07 AM 5/12/11

   A bit about the phenomenon Sound
   
   Unknown to education and science are the true workings of fire, water, air, light, magnetism, sound, sight, cold, hot. electricity, earthquakes, tides–and I could go on and on. I ask you, without knowing the truth of such things, how in bloody H can one determine the simple working of our universe?!
   --------------------
   
   Sound is another and from day one this phenomenon has been misconstrued. Sound travels much faster than light and light travels (when you understand what light really is) faster than what you can comprehend.
   
   The energy that went into hammering that nail was broadcasting 360 degrees cubed. Energy, but much smaller like what you detect but can not see between two repelling magnets is immediately small and fast enough to transport itself right through the Earth and out into other Universes.
   
   The sound that we play around with is leftover energy of reactions that have magnetically regrouped into larger chips (molecules). This leftover energy is just one in many that an air cell has as it's nucleus!
   
   Allow me to again challenge your paradigms
   
   We have been led to believe that thunder is the after math or results of lightning when in fact the opposite is true!
   
   Thunder (the collapse of air cells) creates the energy of what we call lightning.
   
   Thunder happens first!
   
   Considering new technology, and I was listening from the Moon "I would hear your whistle before you would!"
   cbc.ca bruce voigt

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