Music Moves Brain to Pay Attention, Stanford Study Finds

A team from the Stanford University School of Medicine has learned important new information on how the brain makes sense of the chaotic world around it. The team analyzed brain pictures of people listening to brief symphonies by a not-so-well-known 18th-century musician. The study's authors found that listening to music activates the parts of the brain responsible for attention, prediction, and updating memories of events. Peak brain activity occurred during a brief pause between musical beats, during which it appeared that nothing was happening!