Datum och tid: december 1:e vid 14.00
Plats: Peter Reichard föreläsningsal, Biomedicum, Solna väg 9
Talare: Cassia Low Manting, Research Specialist, Daniel Lundqvist's research group, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet
Titel: Tuning the Brain: How Music Sharpens Attention in a Noisy World
Abstract (på engelska -läs om Cassias forskning på svenska längre ner på sidan)
Tuning the Brain: How Music Sharpens Attention in a Noisy World
Listening seems effortless, yet beneath it lies extraordinary complexity. Everyday life bombards us with overlapping sounds—voices at a party, instruments in an orchestra, the hum of a city— and our brain must separate and interpret dozens of overlapping sounds in milliseconds. This ability, known as selective attention, allows us to make sense of the chaos around us and is crucial for communication and survival. Few activities challenge it more beautifully than music: What happens in your brain when you focus on a single melody in a noisy concert hall? Why can musicians follow multiple instruments effortlessly, while others struggle to pick one voice out of a crowd? These questions open a window into how the brain controls attention and how musical experience refines it.
This lecture explores how musical training tunes the brain’s attentional systems, revealing the neural interplay between conscious and automatic control. Drawing on neuroimaging evidence through the unique lens of the musician's brain, we will examine how experience sculpts the brain, what mechanisms underlie expertise, and how the benefits of music training transfer to broader cognitive domains such as language and memory. We will present cutting-edge magnetoencephalography research combining frequency-tagging and machine-learning to separate simultaneous brain responses and uncover how musical training sharpens selective attention. Finally, we will consider broader questions: can musical experience inspire new strategies for education, rehabilitation, or even brain stimulation to enhance focus and learning? Ultimately, this talk invites reflection on how what we practice and value shapes how we hear, think, and experience the world.
Musikträning kan hjälpa hjärnan att fokusera - Cassia Low Manting's senaste forskning
Musikaliska personer har lättare att rikta uppmärksamheten mot rätt ljud i brusiga miljöer. Det visar en ny studie från Karolinska Institutet som publicerats i tidskriften Science Advances. Resultaten tyder på att musikträning kan användas för att skärpa uppmärksamhet och kognition.
Att kunna fokusera på ett samtal i ett rum fullt av ljud är en komplex uppgift för hjärnan. I en ny studie har forskare undersökt hur musikträning påverkar hjärnans förmåga att rikta uppmärksamheten mot specifika ljud.