Mind meets Music

Neuroscience · Cognition · Sonification

Music is basic to human culture and experience. The “Music of Thought Hypothesis” (MOTH) posits that music also describes the fundamental dynamics of brain processes — in other words, you are a symphony. This is not a claim about the perception and processing of musical sounds, but a more general conjecture that the flow of signaling everywhere in the brain exhibits musical properties like scales, rhythms, harmony, and melody. Our brains are making complex music in another medium, the medium of neural networks. MOTH is based in analyses of fMRI and EEG data, introduced in several papers and friendly lectures. The music of the brain itself sounds in a mix of synthesized brainmusic tracks.