Dementia's Gift to Art

Dr. Miller spoke about how different forms of dementia affected creativity and art. Evidence shows that patients with dementia that results in deficits in the left frontal lobe tend to become more artistic, at least visually. While symbolic, linguistic, and conceptual aspects may be lost with the loss of the left brain, the right brain's abilities to visually reproduce images remains intact. Therefore as patients' brain are rerouted when certain areas fail, they may develop keener abilities in the areas that remain.

In one form of dementia that impacts artistic ability the right anterior temporal lobe is impaired. Along with it, patients lose their ability to perceive faces, and especially facial expressions showing emotions. I find the result in art fascinating. These patients still draw people and couples, but even when positioned together, the characters seem isolated and emotionless. This reflects the patients' own deficits in forming relationships due to their lack of ability to understand emotions.

I would be very curious to see how other cognitive conditions affect artistic ability and creativity. I have seen the work of schizophrenics that becomes increasingly confused and frightening as the disorder takes over the patient's mind. "The man who mistook his wife for a hat" even changed his style of painting as his visual abilities failed. While these conditions change and negatively affect those who suffer from them, might they also bring about new abilities and talents?

Dementia's effect on art

While reading Bruce Miller's article that talks about the relationships between art and dementia, I found it interesting that there are patients who are able to grow artistically even though they are suffering from dementia.  The article makes me whether or not my great grandfather, who is currently suffering from Alzheimer's , would do if he tried to focus on some form of art.  His case is very severe, most times forgetting the names of his children even though they see him often.  Usually, he is frustrated by his inability to remember certain details or dates.  The fact that it is possible for him to try to use art as a way to connect with the people around him is a thought that never crossed my mind.  Another interesting thing that I read was that damage to the nondominant hemisphere is more difficult to deal with because it is dominant for visual art, meaning that damage to it can cause major defects to a someone's creativity.

Bruce Miller's talk on Visual Creativity in Dementia gave insights into the neural underpinnings of artistic ability.  Miller describes how Frontal Temporal Dementia (FTD) patients often experience enhanced creative abilities as a result of their illness.  Research provides evidence that this is due to the gradual death of circuits in the left anterior brain regions, necessary for planning, inhibition, and conceptual thinking.  Amazingly, this switching off of left anterior regions of the brain seems to encourage right hemisphere regions, the seat of visual perception, to compensate - thus leading to increased artistic ability.

He also covered how patients with Alzheimer's experience a decline in their ability to process the visual environment as the disease progresses and ultimately they loose their ability all together.  Though these patients don't experience any awakening of hidden talents, as often occurs with FTD patients, their art becomes less realistic and more surrealistic. 

I was not particularly surprised by the information in Dr. Miller's talk as we have learned so much about visual processing in 382 but also because I am an artist myself.  To produce good art, one need to first learn techniques.  To use painting as an example, an artist begins by engaging their left anterior brain to analyze their visual scene and learn how to mix paints, control brush strokes, and plan out a composition.  Eventually many of these skills become more or less automatic, allowing creative juices to flow onto the canvas without the artist having to constantly stop and think about what they are doing.  This would obviously stunt the artistic process. 

For good art to be born, the artist first has to have excellent technique (derived via left hemisphere) but then they have to "forget" it by allowing it to reside in non-declarative memory, where it is engaged in creating the art, but on autopilot.  This allows the right brain to come in at full throttle and guide emotions and energies onto the canvas.  In my own experience, I have often struggled to allow the right brain to do its thing . . . it's easy to get caught up in being analytical and in so doing, stop the flow of energy and emotion.  It is my hope that I will improve at letting my art inform my science and my science inform my art because, in my view, neither is complete without the other;  Just like our brain hemispheres need one another in order to create a rich and fulfilling human experience.

Frontal Temporal Patients and Art

Dr. Miller's talk on Visual Creativity with Brain Disease opened a new way to think about neurological damage.  Oliver Sacks mentions that not all brain diseases result in deficit, but some result in excess.  Frontal Temporal Dementia (FTD) patients have various deficits they must face. Some have progressive fluent language disorder and others have semantic dementia, but according to Dr. Miller some of these patients experience an excess as well: creativity.  It seems that as the world language escapes from some of the FTD patients the begin to preoccupy themselves with the visual world.  It is not only people that were artistically gifted before their dementia that display this extra burst of creativity, but people who had never painted a picture in their life before display their emotion through art as well.  In fact the progression of their disease can be seen in their art work.  If the patients produce art that is concrete at the beginning of their onset it tends to become more abstract as their disease progresses.  William Utermohlen was an artist before the onset of his left side parietal degeneration, but when he was diagnosed he began painting portraits of himself.  As the degeneration progressed the portraits become less and less face-like, and the depression portrayed in each portrait increased.  Utermohlen documented his feelings about his disease through his portraits.  In other patients it was noticed that when drawing animals, the further along someone was in their disease the animals became more prototypical because the patients begin to loose recognition of specific anatomy that belongs to each animal.  Another patient became obsessed with couples and would paint them on various object; however, his deficit was in recognizing emotions.  This deficit caused the couples in the paintings to look eery because the faces did not portray emotions, but the patient continued to paint them until his disease progressed so far that he resulted to abstract art. The obsessions of these patients vary greatly, but in many cases it seems that they replace their language deficit with visual compulsiveness.  Even  though not all FTD patients show this excess in creativity, it would be very interesting to see the different types of FTD documented through art work for those that do show this burst.

ART AND MEMORY

“Art in the context of dementia provides a unique window into the cognitive processes of various brain regions and an opportunity for rehabilitation”, this statement ends the opening paragraph to Portraits of Artists an article by Bruce Miller, MD.  The article discusses artist that experience dementia or Alzheimer’s disease are still able to retain the ability to create art.  I found it interesting that in some of the cases with patients that had frontotemporal dementia (FTD) they found that artistic creativity appeared once again even as the disease developed.  When diagnosing a patient with dementia they examine not only their weakness but their strengths as well, in this case we see one of those strengths being an artistic ability. It was found that patients with FTD developed an interest in painting. This was evidence that despite the disease artistic productivity can somehow still increase.  One very amazing case study was with patients that had right parietal strokes were asked to look at a familiar cathedral. The patients were able to identify many things on their right side but completely disregarded their left side, which meant that the parietal lobes frames attention in a selfish manner and that damage to the right parietal lobe affects the ability to identify images on the left side. This case brings about the Visual Hemi-Neglect, or neglect syndrome in which there is a deficit of spatial attention creating problems with telling “where” objects are in space.

Art and Neurodegenerative Disease

The distinct topics of neurodegenerative disease and art are usually not brought up together, which made Dr. Miller's talk relating the two all the more interesting. Dr. Miller studies the relationship between frontotemporal dementia patients and creativity, as areas correlated with producing art are similar to the brain areas affected by this type of dementia. Miller provided an array of cases of patients using this handicap to their advantage. Throughout the talk, there were many examples of these patients having an expanded ability in the visual arts; however, I wondered, would this be applicable to distant forms of art as well? It was clear that the affected areas of visuospatial processing, which inherently affects how we process artwork visually, but are there analogous deficits that would improve musical or lyrical composition abilities, or affect cinematic creativity? Although this talk covered a lot, especially information that is relevant to this class, it left me curious for more. Not only was this lecture enjoyable to attend, it holds great value for the future of science. The ability to create and interpret art is a uniquely human capability; understanding the processes behind this could pave the way to a better understanding on what neurological features make us distinctly human.

AA and Artistic Expression in Patients with Cortical Degeneration

Artists are often perceived as containing more of whatever it is that makes us human. They, themselves, are expressions of the human condition. Throughout history, they have been tasked with expressing the inexpressible: music, nature, emotion, and more. But, Dr. Bruce Miller states that patients with less - that is, patients with neurodegenerative diseases - are still capable of creating fantastic pieces of art. While this is a rarity, and most Alzheimer's Disease and neurodegenerative patients are in capable of producing coherent artwork, some patients excel. In addition, a patient's road to recover can be tracked through their artwork as they become more and more capable of expressing themselves.

Artwork is considered a "flow" activity. The act of creation is addicting and encompasses multiple areas of the brain. While "predominantly a visual process," researchers anticipate that artists access their OMPFCs when planning and organizing a work, their cingulate cortexes when in need of drive and motivation, and their premotor and motor cortexes when executing their artistic acts. Since creating art utilizes so many different areas of the brain, medical professionals have ability the assess the severity of cortical damage after a stroke and the ability to track the recover of stroke patients. As patients improve, often their unilateral neglect subsides (never fully) and their ability to execute cognitive functions (depending on the location of the lesion) improves. 

Miller focused in particular on one patient, named AA. AA, due to an severe degeneration of her inferior frontal-insular, temporal, and striatal regions, became adept at  reproducing visual representations (at the end, almost photographically) in her art, while simultaneously being mute as a result of her disease. French composer Maurice Ravel also suffered from a similar progressive aphasia. Ravel is famous for his piece, Boléro, which he produced late into his illness. 

Miller argues that as a result of the complete lateral degradation of their left inferior frontal and temporal hemispheres, the right OMPFC, responsible for many aspects of visuospatial and aural functions, went into overdrive," allowing the artists to create such magnificent works of art.

Regardless of its potential to give artists the ability to create art, this neurodegeneration and creative bursts as a result of the illness allow medical professionals to track the recover and asses the damage to cortical areas of patients with said diseases.

Dr. Millers talk on Art and the Brain

Art to me means being creative and seeing beauty in different ways. According to Dr. Miller art is uniquely human. He gives us a story on how he started to get involve with art. It is interesting that he mention something that happen to him as a child. As a child his mom would drag him to the Art Institute of Chicago literally. He describe that his mom was fascinated with art. He then describes two types of patients one with Alzheimer's disease and the other Frontal Temporal Dementia. According to one of his heroes Mesulam there are two regions of the brain: the prefrontal cortex which is located where FTD patients and parietal lobe. In frontal temporal dementia their parietal lobe drastically changes their artwork. That is why we see many different changes. Alzheimers patients have visuospatial deficit but can see colors really well.What really fascinated me that Dr. Miller mention some way to draw. He mention he was taught by an instructor and it help him. It could especially help those who lack the left hemisphere the instructors idea was to draw a picture upside down. That way you are able to use that part of the brain and I believe you are more focused. He showed a video on emotional deficits. It was a mother speaking to her son named Victor and he could not tell when the kid was in pain. Especially when he approach the kid with a squeeze iI believe. Victor didn't know that the kid felt pain. The other thing about Victor is that his paintings were of couples. He was obsess with drawing odd looking couples his way of perceiving them. An interesting fact about him was that his relationships were short and never worked out so he no longer were in a relationship. To be honest this seminar was very interesting to me. I enjoy art especially when it is so bizarre looking.

Dr. Miller and the case of AA

For me, engaging in art projects such as painting and drawing has always been a source of catharsis. It is a time where I can turn off the stresses of everyday life and express thoughts and feelings through my creative outlet. What I did not realize is that artistic creativity may be using entirely different brain regions than one might use in their everyday, non-artistic lives. This finding is best expressed through Dr. Miller’s patient case AA. AA suffered from left fronto-insular degeneration which led to severe deficits in language. However, throughout her disease course and particularly around the beginnings of the disease she experienced great artistic creativity, particularly in her ability to create abstract and conceptual pieces as seen in her Bolero art (later she would cease to paint abstractly, focusing on replications). AA’s neuroimaging revealed that the non-dominant side of her brain, the right parietal cortex was normal to above normal during the peak of her creativity when all of the rest of her brain showed signs of atrophy. The researchers were able to identify four areas of the brain with increased grey matter including right intraparietal sulcus/superior parietal lobule (IPS/SPL), right superior temporal sulcus (STS),right parietal operculum; and the right lateral occipital cortex. These results are similar to another study in which they found musicians to have more cortex volume in their right superior parietal areas (Gaser &Schlaug, 2003, cited in Seeley article). Miller’s work on creativity in the brain, in particular his work with cases like AA suggests that creativity may be associated with specific areas of the brain. So the next time I take time out of my schedule to do something creative I can think of it as exercise for my non-dominant brain region. 

Bruce Miller on Art and Demensia

Dr. Bruce Miller, in his lecture at the neuroscience seminar last Tuesday, spoke about the relationship between change in production of art abilities and progression of dementia. According to his research, Alzheimer's Disease (AD) patients typically begin to produce more abstract, less realistic artwork, while frontotemporal dementia (FTD) patients produce more realistic, less abstract pieces. In addition, FTD patients show a marked preservation in ability to copy and reproduce artwork with normal accuracy, while AD patients exhibit the opposite response. The AD patients' response to progression of the disease stems from a decrease in "precision and attention to spatial relationships." Dr. Miler also argued that encouraging patients with specific types AD or FTD to produce artwork may provide a new outlet for rehabilitation or, at the least, slow the progression of the disease through increase use of the neural networks.

Having volunteered at a daycare home for the elderly with dementia for quite some time, and there observing and assisting with the art programs, Dr. Miller's presentation has caused me to make a few connections. The daycare center houses patients with a huge spectrum of disease progressions, from early onset to late stages, and of almost every specific subtype of dementia. Though I am never told the personal information or specific dementia type of any of the patients, I am now starting to see the differences among them. The seniors are given the freedom to engage in almost any kind of artwork desired, from painting to creating 3D with paper mache. For a long time I've noticed that some really are exceptionally good artists, though when asking about their histories they claim to have no artistic background. I now also can clearly see a pattern of realism in most of their pieces. For example, one ongoing project had the patients create paper mache figures of humans, which were then painted. While some of the finished works held zero resemblance to a human, with green splashes of paint where the eyes should be and perhaps a figure of a mouth on the neck, others were near perfect and even beautiful, far better than anything I could accomplish. Further, about the paintings they made on a day to day basis, many were extremely abstract and often resembled finger paintings of a preschool student. Others represented relatively nice scenes of parks with people playing or homes with all the typical components and yard figures, such as a tree house or garden.

Using Dr. Miller's lecture to guide "my diagnosis" of the elderly, I now can pretty clearly label many of the patients as having either FTD or AD according to the type of artwork they produce. That being said, many are quite difficult to label because they generate such a broad spectrum of art or perhaps just art that lies somewhere between realistic and abstract. One interesting quality that I might now look to note among patients is the decrease in "attention to spatial relationships" that Miller spoke of. Having been at the home for quite some time and getting to know many personally, I will now be able to watch as their artwork progresses with time. Perhaps some will show a decrease in the spatial relationships between objects in their artwork, while others might show a marked increase in skill. Whatever the case may be, being with the patients firsthand now holds even more interest for me because I can apply more knowledge about dementia to what I observe in reality.

Sources
Dr. Bruce Miller's Loyola Neuroscience Seminar Lecture
Miller, Bruce and Hou, Craig. "Portraits of Artists: Emergence of Visual Creativity in Dementia." 2004.

Art and Dimensia

Art comes in many forms. Abstract and realism are just two examples that are special in their own way - abstract art may be great choice to show a color scheme to express happiness, realism may be a better choice if one wants a breathtaking landscape. Many people use art as a way to express themselves, including patients with dimentia. Different forms of dimentia can be the cause of different kinds of art. Patients with frontotemporal dimentia (FTD) are quite good at copying what was already created. Those with Alzheimer's disease (AD) can create beautiful abstract works with interesting color schemes. The article "Portraits of Artists" includes an example of such abstract art with a purple and blue gradient. Because patients with AD lose their visuospatial skills over time, affected patients tend to get more and more abstract, which would be expected since painting realistically would require outstanding visuospatial skills.

A tidbit of information I found particularly interesting was the mention of a woman who experienced a stroke affecting her dorsal stream. Because this affects the "where" when thinking visually, she was unable to focus on an entire scene, though she was able to focus on just one object. In this case, I do not think the stroke (though it most likely affected her way of living) affected her art in a bad way. It switched from being able to take in a whole scene, to being able to focus completely on one object. Though she may not have meant it, her stroke did not hurt her art, it merely just altered it. Art is something a patient can improve on after an event like a stroke, creating a great outlet and therapy at the same time.

Disinhibited Inspiration: The Emerging Artist

The creative drive is one of mankind's most distinguishing characteristics, leaving its mark on the cave walls of our earliest ancestors, the ceilings of our grandest cathedrals, and the alleyways of our most impoverished cities. The subject of creativity has long been the domain of art and philosophy, but as our scientific understanding has evolved so to has our approach to things like creativity. With the advances in imaging techniques and cognitive psychology, we have slowly been able to open the door to a realm that has traditionally been reserved for the consideration of our world's greatest literary and metaphysical minds. It is as an exciting time as ever to be involved in the study of the mind as we slowly unravel the mysteries behind one of our species most unique and exhilarating abilities. 

Being devoid of most artistic abilities myself, I find it interesting that maybe I am just one degenerative disease away from connecting with my creative side. All inappropriate kidding aside, the work of Dr. Bruce Miller exemplifies how some of sciences most awe-inspiring and fascinating discoveries are made through a simple chance observation. Certainly, Dr. Miller would not have imagined that his detailed study of such devastating neurodegenerative diseases would lead to valuable insights into the neurological basis of creativity. Many of these insights come from frontotemporal patients, notably the late Anne Adams.With honors degrees in physics and chemistry, Adams did not seem the type to be absorbed in a world of visual art. But after leaving the academic world to care for her son, who had been injured in an accident, Adams became more and more preoccupied with her painting. Showing an aptitude at rendering realistic scenes, her art then evolved into a transmodal landscape, incorporating abstract concepts into visually stunning works of art. Her most impressive work, "Unraveling Bolero", is a masterpiece, transcribing the work of the French composer Maurice Ravel into captivating canvas, each section of music receiving a carefully articulated visual counterpart. As her disease progressed, in this case through the left inferior frontal, temporal and striatal regions, so too did her artwork, shifting again toward more realistic representations of her world. Imaging of Adams brain revealed both the disease progression through the aforementioned regions but it also revealed a striking increase in grey matter areas in her right parietal lobe. This observation lead Miller to a possible, two-fold explanation behind Adams and similar patients burst of creativity during the onset of disease. Firstly, Miller believed that the degeneration of the left frontal regions led to a sort of inhibition of the inhibition that the frontal lobes are famous for. The so-called "Release Theory" is popular among neuroscientists who seek to explain the myriad of behavioral effects of frontal lesions on the individual. The relaxation of the frontal lobes inhibitory mechanisms can be used to try to explain a surge of activity associated with other brain areas following the frontal damage. In Miller's case, the loss of inhibition in the left frontal lobe allows for a previously somewhat dormant right hemisphere to emerge as a major player in cognition. The second part of Miller's explanation involve the increase functionality of the right hemisphere seen by the increase in grey matter density and hyperperfusion. The areas observed to be now highly active correlate with areas traditionally associated with many of the tasks vital for visually rendering one's world, skills no doubt essential in visual artistry. The result of these two factors interacting is that we have a highly active "artistic" part of the brain no longer under the constraints of the dominant left hemisphere. A highly plausible and excruciatingly interesting hypothesis from one of the most exciting fields of research I have yet to come across. 

 As Dr. Miller and his colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco continue their research, they will hopefully be able to uncover more of the underlying neural mechanisms behind humanity's most scientifically intractable capacities. I know that I will be eagerly awaiting their future publications, especially to figure out just what it is I am missing when I fail miserably to sketch even the simplest of forms.  

Miller Presentation: Art and the Brain

One of the first things Dr. Miller mentioned during his talk was the fact that art is uniquely human, a notion which seemed to resonate with Gary Marcus's perspective on the role of music in society. According to Dr. Miller, art is essentially absent in non-human primates and occurs just before the evolution of civilization and appearance of language, probably representing a fundamental change in the brain. Dr. Miller's comprehensive presentation on the relationship between art and various degenerate diseases brought up a lot of salient points regarding specific deficits and networks in the brain. Dr. Miller highlighted the fact that the right brain is dominantly responsible for visual reproduction whereas the left brain is dominantly responsible for the conceptual aspects of art. I found Fellini's cartoons an interesting application of the material, for they demonstrated a significant loss in the ability for accurate visual reproduction. Another example of Dr. Miller's that I found very intriguing was of Utermohlen, who was a dyslexic Alzhiemer's patient with diminished language function and enhanced artistic ability. Although diminished drawing ability was visible as the Alzheimer's developed, the sadness that was portrayed served to emphasize the internal awareness of loss.

As a biochemistry major, I also found it interesting how Dr. Miller incorporated the fact that with degenerate diseases, misfolding of a protein starts out in one of the circuits and spreads, which reinforces how protein folding is essential to the presence of proper functioning. During the presentation, many neurodegenerative diseases were included which served to further emphasize how various networks can be affected while others remain intact, specifically looking at how artistic ability is impacted. For example, Alzheimer's affects the parietal lobes bilaterally which results in significant deficits in the ability to make precise reproductions, thus patients' art are often visual representations of what they see in terms of features such as color. In contrast, it was interesting to see the opposite in patients with FTD who can develop new artistic skills after the onset of the disease.

Nevertheless, in addition to artistic ability, Dr. Miller also touched on other networks that are affected by neurodegenerative diseases. For example, with semantic dementia, which is a subtype of frontotemporal dementia, symptoms often include marked anomia, where there is not only a loss of the meaning of words, but primarily the loss of nouns. He also discussed other temporal syndromes such as progressive fluent language disorder and progressive non-fluent aphasia.This served to emphasize the fact that various circuits, such as the temporal and posterior circuit are responsible for multiple facets of everyday life.

Art in Many Forms

Portraits of Artists written by Miller and Hui is a very interesting article that goes into dementias and their affects on patients that experience these dementias. The article talks about how even though dementias devastate parts of the brain used for functioning, it leaves others untouched. These untouched parts open us the ability to be visually creative. While a dementia may ruin a function, it gives rise to a wonderful ability. By focusing on this ability patients can pursue the activity that they can impulse on with a positive outlook.The article talks then about what parts of the brain are triggered and the process the mind goes through as it experiences these visual abilities. I think it is very intersting how the nondominant hemisphere of the brain is in full affect because it proves the power of each part of the brain and how important each part of the brain really is.  I also really enjoyed how language was tied into this article because I feel that art and language among other things are ways to communicate what someone is thinking. 
  This was great to read as I was very concerned for my grandfather who has Alzheimer's dementia. My family and I thought that he would lose his love for life as he would have a hard time remembering the things he loved doing. However, it is amazing to see him and his love for art. It brings so much light to him.  it was interesting how the use of fMRIs can be used in this situation. By using the fMRI researchers can see what parts of the brain are activated during the artistic process. I find this article to be very interesting because it shows how complex the brain is and its ability to function even when most of it is damaged.

Creativity and Neurodegenerative Disease

Dr. Miller’s talk on creativity associated with neurodegenerative diseases raised many interesting points. The fact that art is uniquely human and only arose for the first time about 40,000 years ago suggests that its neural correlates reside in those parts of the brain that evolved last and made us into the species we are today. Indeed, art does seem to come, at least in part, from the prefrontal cortex, which is substantially larger in humans than in any other animal. In class, we have talked about the role of the prefrontal cortex in decision making, task switching, monitoring performance, and other such executive functions. It is interesting then that art should also arise from this area. The anterior temporal lobes also play a large role in producing art. This area contains many of the language centers, so it is not so surprising that art, which can be described as a form of language, should be associated with this area.
Dr. Miller has studied frontotemporal dementia patients in relation to creativity because their neurodegeneration can stimulate an obsession with the visual and bestow a previously undiscovered creativity and artistic talent. It’s fascinating that the areas that are correlated with producing art are the same areas affected in FTD. Dr. Miller suggested that degeneration in these parts of the brain in the left hemisphere is what causes this visual creativity. Since the left hemisphere is thought to be more logical and linguistic, as opposed to its conceptual and emotional counterpart, perhaps degeneration in the left can liberate the right to freely express its view of the world. I had always thought that neurodegenerative diseases were very diffuse and non-selective, but Dr. Miller talked about how the misfolded protein causes a kind of Hebbian degeneration in which very specific neural networks are affected. That fact makes the studying of these patients extremely valuable in their capacity to show us just how the brain works.

Art and Dementia

Reading Bruce Millers article what I found to be quite interesting was that art was not only considered a visual process but also a form of language based process. I found it interesting that individuals who developed PPA symptoms could develop new musical or artistic abilities. I was stunned that as patients such as Anne Adams, whose language was degenerating, that she was still able to grow as a better artists. Usually when one thinks of brain deficits or anything involving brain abnormalities you expect to lose skill not gain a better artistic ability as in Anne Adams case. My best friend’s grandmother has Alzheimer’s and she tells me how it’s getting worse and worse and how her grandmother is starting to forget a lot. I never knew that art was used as a tool to help engage and connect with people who have dementia. Although recent memories and thinking ability may decline with Alzheimer’s, your long-term memories are still there, as are your emotions, and art and music for people with dementia can help remember them as well as express them. Art is also a great way to express joy and creativity among these patients. Slowly forgetting everything must make people very frustrated because Alzheimer’s is a serious illness, so by engaging the patients in these activities it can help relax them and express them self through their creativity. I view art to be a great rehabilitation technique for patients with dementia.   Patients with dorsal stream dysfunction is damaging to painting because both the ventral in recognition and dorsal stream in localization, as well as the cortical and sub cortical brain regions are crucial in artistry. The nondominant hemisphere is the one that is dominant for visual art, so any damage to it can cause major defect to a person’s creativity.

Art and Dementia

      The “Portraits of Artists”by Bruce Miller and Craig Hou is in regards to patients who are suffering from dementia, and yet are able to expand artistically. These are some remarkable findings because the topic of dementia hits home for me. My grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease about a year ago, and the disease causes her to not be able to remember.  However, that is not the worst part; the worst part is that she is frustrated because she is unable to recall important information, and this frustration  leads to tantrums. She is in a rehabilitation center for her ankle, and the center has been taking her to art time. They stated that everyone in the rehabilitation center does very well when they are engaging in art related activities. To our surprise art time has definitely had an impact on my grandmother as she is quite calm after art time.

      My grandmother has been producing some very abstract artwork, which seems bizarre and out of touch at times, but still looks very beautiful. This is consistent with the findings listed in the paper; it has shown that patients suffering from Alzheimer’s have been able to create successful artistic pieces that are appealing even though they are not consistent with reality.  It is amazing to read a paper that speaks of the same concept that I have been observing with my grandmother. At first, it was astonishing and confusing that she was able to create such artistic pieces that were so profoundly amazing, despite the fact that she is unable to remember my name. I am glad that the center started to take her to art time because it definitely helps her channel her frustration into an artistic medium. So, the article is consistent in stating that, “focusing on the potential of patients with dementia could become a powerful tool for rehabilitation. I think it is definitely proving to be a powerful tool for rehabilitation; at least it is for my grandmother. 

      As for the patients suffering from Frontal Temporal Dementia, I found the fact that the usage of certain colors such as “purple, yellow, or blue” was more often than other colors very interesting. I wonder if they use these colors more often than other because they are bright and perhaps more “eye-catching” than other colors. Another intriguing aspect of this paper was that art is not only a visual process, but rather a language-based process as well. I have never referred to art as a form of a language based process because I have always associated it with a visual and motor process. Although, I can see the relationship between art and it being a language process, as explained in the article with "symbolism and linguistic concepts" . Due to the fact that, symbolism was used within the art and the need for linguistic concepts to explain the art and the different aspects of symbolism used to make the artistic piece relevant. Above all, I think it is great that art is prevalent as a rehabilitation tool.

Object Naming

   When we think of having to name objects that we see or are described to us we simply take it as another everyday task. It doesn't really strike us as something that would be so complicated or require much energy. In reality "the naming of visual objects is an immensely complicated process." (Hurley). In a study done at Northwestern University patients were tested on being able to name different objects and comprehend different words. Through a series of tests two different types of anomia were identified; one that was based on impaired retrieval and the second on distorted semantic representation of words. Through these tests different characteristics were found when it came to naming objects. First there were patients (PPA-GL) who could recognize the names of the objects and could associate them with the correct object but could not verbally express the objects name. An example would be a woman who was able to recognize objects and write their names but she was not able to verbally express the name of the objects.  In cases like these it was determined that the "problem could not be attributed to a distortion of nonverbal object representation" (Hurley). In other words it was said that naming failures occur when signals are too weak to elicit retrieval but not too weak where they can't recognize objects.  When people name objects two networks are required in order for the naming to occur. Both the bilateral inferotemporal lesions and the left hemisphere language network lesions are used; if either one of them where to be damage it would disrupt the other one causing a disconnection as well as causing both parts to not work properly. 
   Each part of the brain is connected or plays a role in helping other parts of our bodies function.  With studies like these we are able to learn and continue to discover new things about problems
like primary progressive aphasia. These situations give us insight into what other individuals are facing when they are not able ot name or comprehend certain objects or words. What seems to us as something very simple is something extremely difficult for them.

Dr. Hurley's talk

      Dr. Hurley’s talk was about PPA which is a degeneration of language network that leads to anomia (inability to name objects) and comprehension problems. PPA has been subdivided into three main categories: agrammatic (non-fluent) PPA-G, semantic PPA-S, and logopenic PPA-L. The first form of PPA, the agrammatic form is associated with poor grammar, inability to form syntactic structures of sentences. Another form, the semantic aphasia is manifested in comprehension problems, and logopenic aphasia is the most controversial one that is widely studied recently. Logopenic aphasia patients have good grammar and good comprehension of words but they are unable to repeat words, much like in conduction aphasia. 

      One of the techniques used by Dr. Hurey measured neural activity in PPA patients and that was EEG with the N400 ERP. N400 is a negative going potential that peaks around 400 ms after the stimulus; it is sensitive to word retrieval. It was observed that the amplitude of the N400 was bigger when the expected word appeared. In the matching test paradigm, a picture or word cue was presented, and participants had to press a button when the word matched that particular picture and another button when it did not. In order to get to the semantic level of PPA, investigators asked subjects to identify whether the semantic mismatch was related to the same category. 

      There was one interesting patient who said that she knew the name of the object but she just could not say it. She proved herself right by correctly writing down the name of the object on the paper. It was concluded that this patient had problem with the speech production, and the EEG showed a big N400, suggesting that she connected to the word but she could not verbalize it (impairment in the lexical access). The brain areas that are associated with three forms of PPA were identified. PPA-S patients showed more atrophy in the anterior temporal lobe, PPA-L displayed atrophy in the posterior part of the language network. 

      When Dr. Hurley wanted to correlate temporal pole with the ability of naming objects an interesting thing happened. He found inactivation of the temporal pole in the fMRI study, even though there was activation in the PET scan. This made him think of options other than his CaLLs model to explore PPA. He proposed a possibility of the disconnection syndrome-inability to read, write, understand and copy words, where the white matter is damaged between the Broca’s area and temporal pole and between the temporal pole and Wernicke’s area. As a good researcher, he took into consideration different possibilities and he did not stop at this point; he plans to do more research on PPA.

PPA and ASL

During his presentation on primary progressive aphasia, Dr. Robert Hurley mentioned a specific patient that was believed to suffer from semantic primary progressive aphasia but in reality she had a unimodal deficit in the ability to verbalize the name of the objects.  Once Hurley gave her a piece of paper and pen she was significantly better at the object recognition task.  This got me thinking about whether sign language could help in her case, or possibly cases of primary progressive aphasia.  It seems logical that sign language would help the lady who had a unimodal deficit in verbalizing the name of objects, but what about patients who suffer from primary progressive aphasia.  

After a little bit of searching I came across a study that Cynthia Pattee and her colleagues conducted in 2006 that found evidence that both text to speech and american sign language are treatment possibilities for progressive speech and language disorders.  Specifically the researchers found that the text to speech and ASL increased the number of words, correct information units and correct usage of those information units for progressive speech and language disorder patients.  Hopefully there will be more research done on how alternative means of communication could help people who suffer from primary progressive aphasia.

Pattee et al (2006)

http://journals.lww.com/intjrehabilres/Abstract/2006/06000/Effects_of_alternative_communication_on_the.10.aspx

Gary Marcus on Evolution

Gary Marcus focused his talk on the evolution of language and music. After his talk, I had the opportunity to discuss with him the possibility of further human evolution. Marcus doubts that humans will continue to evolve, primarily for two reasons: modern health care and birth control. Modern health care allows those who would have died in a "survival of the fittest" scenario to survive, and birth control slows down the rate of reproduction. 

This severely lowers the probability that the human genome will evolve with any species-wide consequences. Whether it is a good or a bad thing is open to interpretation. It is certainly good for those like myself who need glasses for any hope of seeing and asthma which probably would have killed me off in childhood if not for modern medicine. But it also closes off the possibility of further refining or improving human traits. 

If humans no longer evolve, is the model of human today what will remain in the far future? Or is there now a possibility of devolution? Only time (billions and billions of years) will tell.

Thorough Research: Dr. Hurley's Talk

Dr. Hurley's talk on progressive primary aphasia was a reinforcement on a very important concept that we have been learning since the beginning of the Cognitive Neuroscience class: that the brain consists of numerous pathways and no one region is solely responsible for a task. In Dr. Hurley's CaLLS model the visual and auditory pathways integrate in the temporal pole which he found evidence for using PET.  When participants of his study were naming objects, the PET scans showed metabolism in the temporal lobe, but the fMRI scans are not showing activation in that region during the same task.  Dr. Hurley believes that the lack of activation in the fMRI scan could be due to the air pockets around the temporal lobe, so the resolution around that area is not as good.  In order to show that there are differences in the integration of incoming information in PPA patients, the study uses a paradigm that pairs different stimuli together (picture with picture, picture with word) and looks if PPAs experience the same surprise when the pair doesn't match as the control.  The surprise, or comprehension, is marked by the N400 ERP.  There is a difference between the control's and the PPA's N400 that would suggest that the there is a difference in the way the two groups process incoming information.
However, there is still the question of why Dr. Hurley is not seeing activation in the temporal lobe.  In his perseverance, Dr. Hurley added another study that paired a picture with sound, so that another type of sensory information can be examined.  Even with the extra study added, Dr. Hurley is worried that there may be another cause for the difference in the N400: the Disconnection Syndrome.  In this case it would be the white matter that between the visual and language systems that has been disconnected in PPAs.  This would cause the same result in the N400 as the CaLLS theory.  I thought it was great that Dr. Hurley was honest that there could be another cause for the difference.  He is a great example of being a good researcher because even though he would like to be correct in his theory, he did not reject the idea that he could be wrong.  Instead, he added another study to his research (sound and olfactory), and he is even starting studies with intracranial recordings on epilepsy patients.  He is conducting thorough research instead of pretending that there isn't another potential explanation or giving up. It is important to remember that it is better to use multiple methods in your research so you have more evidence, whether it supports your hypothesis or not.  Even when your hypothesis is not supported, you should not be discouraged because your research may lead to other discoveries further down the line.

Dr. Hurley: Function (Doesn't Always) Follow Form

Dr. Robert Hurley’s talk regarding Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) was very interesting, especially because it connected with what we were talking about in class. Dr. Hurley discussed the different subtypes of PPA, and they reminded me of umbrella types of aphasia. In agrammatic PPA (PPA-G), the patient has deficits in grammar, but their word comprehension is relatively spared. This sounds like Non Fluent, or Broca’s, Aphasia. This is caused by atrophy in frontal areas (including Broca’s area) that are related with speech production, and imaging studies have agreed with this. 

When explaining semantic PPA (PPA-S), Dr. Hurley described that this is caused by anterior temporal (temporal pole) damage which results in deficits in word comprehension, but not grammar. This reminds me of Fluent, or Wernicke’s, Aphasia because of the deficits. However, Dr. Hurley pointed out that if Wernicke’s area is associated with comprehension, one would expect it to be damaged in PPA-S (since comprehension is impaired), but imaging shows that it actually is not. This leads one to believe that there is something else going on, and much research still needs to be conducted.

I really enjoyed Dr. Hurley’s talk, and it also brought up the important point discovering the inner-workings of the brain is a complex and ever-changing field. One must consider the anatomy of the brain when studying function (and vice versa), and must also integrate the results of imaging and behavioral studies when drawing conclusions. Sometimes, one has to adjust their theory and roll with the punches.

Dr. Hurley's Talk: Paradigm Conflicts in Language

Dr. Hurley’s talk covered a wide battery of experiments that explored many aspects of Primary Progressive Aphasia. The part of his presentation that I found most interesting was the conflict between his paradigm of how language is processed with a paradigm from another lab. He presented a lot of data that seemed to support his idea and discount the other. However, he also recognized that there is a lot more research that needs to happen in order to confirm or reject his model. 
This conflict of models reminds me of the differing models of memory that we discussed in class. Both Baddeley’s and Cowan’s models of how short-term memory and long-term memory interact have been supported by various experiments, although Cowan’s seems to be supported more strongly by the neurological data. This just goes to show that there are many possible models for how the brain performs a multitude of tasks. It reminds me that, as neuroscientists, we must be flexible with what we believe about the brain, because knowledge is always transforming.

Research Methods

Dr. Hurley’s talk on primary progressive aphasia reminded me of the many important aspects of producing good research in the field of behavioral cognitive neuroscience, specifically the importance of using converging operations, understanding the anatomy of the brain and how it might relate to the deficit, and finally that what we know about the brain in constantly changing. 

                When researching primary progressive aphasia, Hurley drew his knowledge from the use of a variety of different methods.  For example among a number of methods, Hurley used EEG to discover that the N400 is important in the cognitive process of predictive encoding, in the case of his study, word retrieval. He looked at lesion studies in the temporal pole to conclude that this area may be important for naming objects, PET data to confirm metabolic activity in the temporal pole. Hurley also discussed the use of DTI and ECOG to look at other possible explanations for PPA including the disconnection of tracts caused by damage to white matter.

                Dr. Hurley’s understanding of brain anatomy allowed him to further explore other explanations for primary progressive aphasia other than the CaLLs model . Hurley was able to test whether or not the integration of objects to form a word meaning takes place in the temporal pole (calls model) or with a connection between different areas of the brain through white matter tracts. Without a good understanding of brain anatomy Hurley would not have explored other possible explanations of primary progressive aphasia needed to produce good research.

                Finally, Dr. Hurley and other researchers’ flexibility to think outside the realms of the traditional understanding of language led to the discovery of another language center of the brain other than Wernicke and Broca areas, the temporal pole. Previous fmri studies suggested that there was not a significant amount of activity in the temporal pole to be considered an important spot for language. However, further exploration and the use of other methods has suggested that it is important for producing words.

                I really enjoyed Dr. Hurley’s talk because the reasoning behind his research followed a similar method to how we learn and discover the inner-workings of the brain in class. It showed me how converging operations, understanding of brain anatomy and flexibility in neuroscience should always be considered when both doing and evaluating good research. 

Dr. Hurley's Study

According to the article Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a degenerative syndrome that causes gradual atrophy of the left hemisphere language network, leading to impairments of object naming (anomia) and word comprehension. There were many types of experiments and assessments for different individuals. These type of experiments were done to find out if the condition of aphasia was caused by visual perception problems or verbal problems. This study was using Western aphasia battery and Pea body picture vocabulary test, Northwestern Anagrams Test. The results were also determined to exam the hypothesis that anomia in PPA-S patients is caused by a distortion in word comprehension and lexical labeling at the specific rather than generic level of identification.

Evolution of Music

     Whether you are looking at gender, language, or empathy, an evolutionary perspective is always fascinating to explore.  Evolutionary in biology has always made since to me, but when it was first introduced to me as a psychological theory I was a bit skeptical.  In my ignorance it seemed a little odd to put the two together, but now it makes so much sense.  So much of what goes on in the human psyche is caused by evolution, and Marcus extended my understanding of evolutionary psychology even more during his talk at the Neuroscience banquet last week.  Both his lecture and book made a compelling argument that music has evolved similarly to language in humans.
    His point that music has evolved as a form of social cohesion resonated with me after the lecture.  Even though it is obvious that making and listening to music is often a social activity, it was interesting to hear him compare it to how language brings people together.  Without language we would not be able to build meaningful relationships or share ideas.  And Marcus pointed out that music is also important in building relationships though shared experience.  It was truly enjoyable to hear about Marcus' theory of origin of music.

Gary Marcus' talk

      Gary Marcus’ presentation dealt with the evolution of language and music, concepts closely tied up with the field of evolutionary psychology. He started up with the brief history of survival of the fittest. He proposed that language and music evolved for couple of reasons. First of all, language evolved for social purposes as a way of communication between people of various cultures. Secondly, Marcus indicated that language evolved as means of attraction of mates; he brought up the concept of sexual selection. He spoke about the origin of language, specifically how it actually evolved. Marcus claimed that language did not evolve as a result of new dramatic, genetic changes but rather it happened to evolve as an outcome of tiny genetic changes that were critical enough for adaptation and preservation through generations. Also, he stressed that language should not be viewed as an innovation but something that was always there; acquired by our ancestors and passed down to the offspring. He called the theory of evolution of language a Descent with Modifications. He intertwined concepts from his books: The Guitar Zero and Kluge. Marcus suggested that our language is also a kluge, meaning it is not perfect.  How many times when you try to find the proper word to use in a particular moment and you have it right on “the tip of your tongue”, you cannot retrieve it? It frequently happens to all of us. This is due to weak connections of speech sounds represented in our memory. 

      Moving on to music, Gary Marcus advocated that thanks to language we have music. Music as a result of culture’s influence is like social glue; brings people together to create a cohesive society. He gave us examples of how music affects our rewarding systems in the brain. When we hear something that has the same beat, our rewarding systems gets activated, similarly when the beat of the song changes. He made a distinction between language and music by comparing language to instinct, something that is innate, and music being a technologically acquired skill. 

      I enjoyed Marcus talk because it was much like my anthropology class, where evolution of human social behavior is a hot topic

Gary Marcus and the Evolution of Language and Music

              At the 2012 Neuroscience Banquet, I had the fortune of listening to Gary Marcus give his talk on the evolution of music and language. His talk ranged from the evolution, in general, and transcended towards the parallels between understanding language and understanding music. After reading his book in class all semester, it was an enriching experience to finally attend a talk of his and learn more about his interesting explanations behind two concepts that greatly affect everyone's lives.
              As Dr. Marcus started talking about the basis of evolution and how language has developed within our species, he made many interesting connections to his book Kluge where he writes about how language evolved to "get the job done" but not in the most ideal way. In the same way that the human spine could have been better engineered to reduce many problems and work more efficiently, language has many problems, but turned out to stand the test of natural selection.
             As he continued to move from language to music, he hit on some key points that really opened my eyes to the connections between neuroscience and everyday life. In my opinion, one of the most interesting parts of the talks was where Marcus explained how dopamine is responsible for our love of music. Since hearing music that fulfills our expectations and hearing new music for the first time both produce an influx of dopamine in our system, it is easy to see why music has evolved the way it has.
            One of the most important benefits of learning class-related material outside of class is the chance to connect it to everyday life. After attending this talk, there was a lot of new information that Dr. Marcus had presented which connected parts of our lives to the neuroscience that most of us have been focusing on our entire collegiate careers. It was an honor hearing such a respected member of the science I hope to one day contribute to speak, and I am glad that I had the opportunity to connect aspects of his talk to both my classes and my life.

Music

The lecture given at the neuroscience banquet on Saturday was very interesting as it was about evolutionary psychology. Though there were many parts of the lecture that were very interesting, I thought the talk about music was the easiest to relate to. Dr. Marcus went over why music evolved and its impact on society today. He also went on to say music is a higher motion of communication.  He started off by saying that music evolved as an advantage for mammals to attract mates. I thought that was so interesting as I can see how true that is. When I listen to a song I look at two things; the beat and the lyrics. It isn’t that both have to be good for me to enjoy it, but one of them should catch my attention in order for me to stay around and keep listening. If it does not appeal to me at the first time, I will never hear the song again. Artists must do a good job at making their music appeal to listeners, as they want the fans. I think this is so strange because it is also the way most people find their partners. There has to some attraction either physical or emotional for a person to stick around and explore that option.

I thought it was very interesting how music also plays a role in social environment. Music has the ability to bring the most different types of people together. I never realized the impact music has as it can also set the mood for everyone. For instance, when I’m having a bad day and I listen to dancing music, my mood completely changes. Music can also come to a person as comfort. Music is an outlet for people and when I sit to analyze, I wonder where our society would be if we didn’t have music to bring us together? Would it be easier/ harder for the society to get along?  

Empathy

The paper on Phylogenic and ontogenetic perspectives on empathy goes into depth about how the emotion ,empathy, is developmental and evolutionary. Bringing together the two concepts of neuroevolutionary with developmental perspectives to find out how the mechanics work when dealing with emotions. Empathy is an emotional state or condition that comes as a response for a given situation. As empathy is an adapted function and happens unconsciously. It is the initial response that then decides what actions follow. This ability drives what humans do, as it is a response mechanism. For instance, if we see a friend crying, or initial response is to help them cope, that is to be empathetic and caring. Without realizing it. Just as mammals develop parenting behavior, they also develop emotions such as separation, pain, love distress etc. those emotions we form without any knowledge of doing so. We continue to have kept these emotions as they have rewards. Parental nurturing has its rewards, says the article, in which parents seek out thus creating a cycle of empathy where care is shown and happiness and love is rewarded.

Infants use attachment as a form of survival. This is another trait humans are biologically predisposed to. Studies show the more attached an infant is, the more empathetic he or she will be towards others. Whereas children who are not exposed to this type of care can result in sociemotional difficulties.

This essay goes over how empathy is a predisposed trait humans are exposed to.

This essay is interesting in that, it suggests that if they can figure out the neurobiological underpinnings of sociemotional difficulties they can try to find interventions.

After reading this essay, I realized how empathy makes the biggest impact on my actions In situations I usually have a clear mind that will make decisions I think are right for the situation. However, the moment I hear or see something that changes the mood, my actions hugely depend on what I just saw. For instance, when I saw my friend crying about her boyfriend cheated her. My initial thought was “oh I really hate this guy”. As the story progressed, I started to get as angry as she was even though he had done nothing to me. At this point, m judgment was fogged and the only thing that was clear to me was “ I need to say something to him about it.” And I did- I proceeded to tell him off and go off on him. Had my thoughts been clear, I wouldn’t have done that as it is not my business to do that but I did it because I thought it was the right thing I do given the situation.

Empathy is a very strong response mechanism that can cause us to do the actions that we may regret in the future. Emotions are sometimes unbeatable and fog up or mind with things we wan to do with the things we should do. It is insane how much humans rely on emotions to cause their actions unconsciously.

Music Evolution

During the 2012 neuroscience banquet, Gary Marcus gave a speech focusing on the connection between two of his books, Kluge and Guitar Zero.  He argued that music and language were connected through the reasons for their evolution. 

Marcus took the time to talk about possible reasons for why music and language evolved as well as how.  He speculated that two possible reasons that music and language evolved was for them to be used as a "social glue" in addition to a way to attract possible mates.  When he talked about sexual selection in terms of animals, Marcus referenced that birds as well as other animals sing to attract mates.  The better the song, the more offspring were possible.  For humans, Marcus referenced the "Jimi Hendrix Theory."  He pointed out that because Hendrix could play amazing music, he could have had many children from his travels.  Jimi Hendrix's musical talent raised his reproductive success.  Marcus also states that even though the examples favor men, it could also apply to women.

Music is involved in our everyday life, its something we hear constantly in things like commercials, entertainment, etc.  I thoroughly enjoyed Marcus' talk about music, especially since I used to be greatly involved in it when I was younger, playing the violin as well as a few brass instruments.  It was interesting how he pointed out that while one can have musical talent, without success, one cannot raise their reproductive success.  Marcus' take on why we have music was extremely interesting

The Appeal of Music

Why is it that hearing only up to the seventh of the eight note octave leaves us with an unsatisfactory, discomforting feeling? I remember as a child hearing my piano teacher tell me the story of how Mozart's mother would play C up to B on the piano in the morning, because it forced Mozart to jump out of bed and run to the piano to play that final C. There is something special, even self-completing to the sound of hearing the whole scale to any musician. But why is it that this particular set of frequencies is so "nice" to us? As Dr. Gary Marcus asked us at the Loyola University Neuroscience Banquet last Saturday, what might an alien find pleasing, if they liked music at all? A 61 note octave, or perhaps 27? An even better question, why are so few mammals on Earth able to appreciate music? Very few have been identified as having care for music being played.
Dr. Marcus argued that music has evolved due to a kind of sexual selection among humans. Those of us who could, for example, sing best may have attracted the most mates. And those who lacked the capacity were more often excluded. But, he also brought up, there are many examples of relatively smart and extremely productive people who have had no care for music, such the infamous psychologist Dr. Freud. In addition, there is absolutely no evidence that has shown that musicians are better able to find mates in this day and age. However, it has been incredibly difficult for musicians to maintain a steady career or even become well-known until the dawn of record players and the radio. In the Medieval Ages musicians were seen as a "lesser" career, to be looked down upon.
Music as we know it now has really only become the "way it is" within the past millennium, an insignificant period of time compared to evolutionary history. One can only wonder what people preferred to sing, the kinds of beats they made, or how prevalent music was in civilizations at all.
Perhaps music has only become a focal point of our society during these past few hundred years because only now have we truly had the time or ability to produce and listen to it. We enjoy and attach ourselves emotionally to certain songs, whether it be the first song newlyweds danced to or your break up song from high school. Music has a great power in controlling our feelings, but we have little explanation as to why.
Perhaps one reason why like music is the novelty of it, the challenge of predicting what chord might come next or where a song will lead. The reason we don't like random noises nearly as much as we like songs is because it is complete novelty and impossible to predict; i.e., no challenge presented. We like to hear 80% known material with 20% novelty or challenge. We are then able to enjoy the sounds because it is not entirely foreign but it is not so repetitive that we get bored.
Back to the original question, why is it that we like the eight note octave? Well, I haven't the faintest idea, but my guess is that it is just the way our brains are hardwired. Marcus also spoke of his book Kluge, a book about how humans are not the "optimal" organism per se, but we are the optimal solution given what we had to work with from our evolutionary history. I would imagine that we like music in the fashion we do due to mere chance, that as our brains changed over time for important evolutionary advantages, the eight note octave appeal came as a by product. This could explain why dolphins like music in a completely different manner. They evolved differently than we did, and as such their brain formed differently than ours. We started with the same "materials," and we simply went our separate paths.

Language, Music, and Gary Marcus

Gary Marcus’s talk about language and music from an evolutionary perspective was very interesting. He began by considering the notion that these two things evolved for many of the same purposes: a “social glue,” and way to attract mates.

Language obviously helps us communicate, but Marcus points out that its evolution is a bit of a kluge (a clumsy or inelegant—yet surprisingly effective—solution to a problem). This is clearly demonstrated in what are known as “garden-path” sentences, such as “the horse raced past the barn fell.” Reading this, you probably stumbled upon reaching the word “fell,” at which point you had to backtrack to try to find other possible ways to read the sentence. Language is not a perfect system.

When discussing why music evolved, Marcus mentioned sexual selection. In birds and other animals, males use songs to entice females: the better the male’s song, the more offspring they had, raising their reproductive success, favoring music. For the human equivalent, Marcus cites the “Jimi Hendrix theory.” Hendrix could play great music and had fathered many children while on the road; his musical talent raised his reproductive success, and thus music was selected for. However, Marcus points out that this theory implies that musical ability should have only involved in men, but we know that this is not true—there are many great female musicians, some of which are even better than some men.

Marcus’s then explained that the reason for the way language and music (and everything else) evolved “imperfectly” is because it is not “survival of the fittest” in the sense that the most advantageous, “perfect” trait was selected for; rather, nature selected the fittest out of the options that currently exist without forethought. Things evolve via “evolutionary inertia:” once moving in particular direction, an evolutionary system tends to continue to evolve in that direction, maybe making minor changes along the way.

All in all, Gary Marcus’s talk was very thought provoking and it was a pleasure to hear him speak.

Kluge

"Kluge(s): A clumsy solution that gets the job done but not with the best solution."

At the Loyola neuroscience banquet Dr. Marcus gave a very interesting talk on kluges, evolution, music and language. Dr. Marcus mentioned how many species share basic structures with minor modifications. When individuals think about evolution we realize that evolution does not think ahead, it does not have forethought. On the other hand humans also have difficulties; humans generally have difficulties remembering the exact wording of a sentence, they are generally not able to repeat exact sentences; the only reason actors and other individuals can perform this is because they practice and work towards mastering this skill. When a person tries to process a sentence parts of other sentences interfere, as a result things might look fine locally but not globally. In other words, a sentence might look grammatically correct but when said out loud it is incorrect or confusing.

In reality humans are not good at binding things together; they lack the right kind of memory. Human brains are bound by what we call the binding problem, where individuals do not have the kind of memory like a machine. Unlike humans, machines have very specific parts and locations for different information, they are able to accomplish tasks in one try. Humans on the other hand need many many trials to accomplish tasks. Sometimes the human brain is too poor to remember important things even in life and death situations. Dr. Marcus gave and example of individuals forgetting to pull the cord when they parachute. In situations like these people are very excited and are mostly thinking about their experience and what they will tell others about it. Other reasons people might forget to pull the parachute cord could be because they have experienced this so many times they cannot clearly remember if they already pulled the cord or if they are thinking about the last time they did this.

Human language is the best possible system for language, and evolution has had a big influence on how language works today. In language as well as in music we find repetition to be pleasing; we are actually able to tolerate the constant repetition of a tune in music. While language is an instinct and is something that comes automatically to humans, music is an acquired skill that requires training and technology.

I used to think that our body was always built the best way possible, but Dr. Marcus certainly changed my opinion on many things. Quite often we try to find solutions to fix a problem we have but many times we do not stop to think if it’s the best solution or if we are simply fixing a problem with a kluge.

What Can Evolution Tell Us About Music and Language

At the 2012 annual neuroscience banquet, we had the privilege of hearing from Gary Marcus. In his talk, he focused on drawing a connection between two of his most popular books: Kluge and Guitar Zero. His argument was that music and language seem to be connected in an evolutionary manner but in different ways.

First, he discussed the evolution of language. He began by stating two crucial questions that must be answered. First, why did something evolve? And second, How did something evolve? This compares and contrasts function with structure. It seems that language evolved in order to attract mates and have an advantage in social cohesion. Next, Marcus delved into how language evolved. He refers to language as a "Kluge" because it is a clumsy solution to get the job done, but not ideally. Language allows us to communicate to one another, but the English language does not always make sense. Why do we park in a driveway and drive in a parkway? Marcus attributes this to "evolutionary inertia". Basically once language started moving in a particular direction, it continued on in that direction. It is simply a matter of probability.

Next, Marcus continued by relating these same precepts to music. He asks this vital question: Has evolution left its fingerprints on music? To answer this question, he first turned to "exomusicology", which seeks to discover what other species favor about music. He begins by explaining that music could be a sexual-selective trait used to attract mates, but it is not the only way to attract mates. Marcus then continues by drawing the differences between language and music in an evolutionary sense. He states that language and music are both infinite combinatorial systems, but language is learned differently and earlier. In fact, Marcus argues that language is learned naturally in a sort of innate sense. He asserts that language is required to be evolutionary successful, but music is not. Language is instinctual while music is a technologically acquired skill that does not directly evolve. Music is dependent on the structure of the mind, whereas language seems to already by built into the brain's framework.

He concluded by saying that language and music do have the same structure built on physical requirements, functional pressures, and evolutionary inertia, but differ by one distinct thing: culture. Music is dependent on culture, whereas language is not. Music is simply a technology that fits into the culture of that time, whereas language is much more universal and transcends culture.

Furthermore, Gary Marcus' talk about the evolutionary history of language and music was very fascinating. It was a privilege to hear him speak and it was interesting to see him connect his two books together and shed some light on the evolutionary origins of music and language.

The Language of Music

The language of music is something that we can all understand and participate in as either active listeners or creators. Language and music share many commonalities, as highlighted by Gary Marcus. As Marcus stated, music is a "peacock's tail" in that while it may not be for sexual selection, it is a foundation upon which relationships can be formed. This is true of not only humans, but is also exemplified by the mating calls of birds or other species that use the language of music to communicate and attract their mates, which is the evolutionary reason language evolved in the first place. While music may be subject to the same pressures as language, music has the additional requirement of culture. Marcus's presentation made me truly realize how both language and music are forms of communication that have become key components of our society and have evolved with time. 

Music is something that has been integrated into our daily lives. We are constantly exposed to music created by both nature and human beings. Having participated in choir and played instruments myself, I have come to appreciate the dedication and effort required to become a proficient musician. Nevertheless, whether it be the rhythm, notes, or harmonies, music has the ability to evoke emotion and truly speak to us. It is exploited by the media and entertainment industry, but also serves as a source of enjoyment and relaxation. As Marcus points out, music cannot be created by computer programs that use statistics to put together notes in a formulaic pattern. Thus, music is truly a form of expression, like language, that requires the human mind to have meaning, but is distinct from language in that it is also a learned skill. 

When analyzing music as a language, we can see how music reflects the time period in which it was created. As true of both language and music, as times change, the words that are used as well as the tempos and melodies also evolve. Not only are new words created, but new sounds are also possible, as seen with an increase of autotuning. Despite this evolutionary inertia, the power and universality of language, whether in the form of words or music retains it's power to speak to us. Music from the pre-historic era, to the Rennaissance, all the way to the 50's and even today has grown in the instruments available and the complexities involved in it's creation; yet Shakespeare's works are still regarded as classics with themes that hold true today, similar to the ways in which music from decades ago, created in a different economy and time period can still be understood.

Reading

The article I chose is titled Anatomy of word and sentence meaning, which focuses on tasks that involve obtaining the meaning of a word in isolation or in relation to a sentence. Granted many studies have brought about an agreement as to the general areas that are involved when it comes to comprehending words.  The data that was gathered from the article supports that the frontal semantic areas are active before the posterior areas become active. In the study the participants are showed a sentence with a missing word followed by a cross fixation, the participants were examined using EEG. They focus on the participants while reading and seeing how seeing how reading affects the comprehension of the word or sentence that is being seen.  I found it interesting that the results showed that within the left frontal area activation were seen when a task involved semantic classification where the frontal areas, more posterior demonstrated activation that were activated by phonological tasks, or the use of verbal working memory. This finding is interesting because much of the literature regarding lesions explains that semantic functions use Wernicke’s area which produces semantic aphasia where sentences will be uttered with a typical fluency but will not make any sense. One clue regarding how the frontal and posteriors areas share semantic processing during activities such as listening and reading, are through an eye movement study.  This showed how a skilled reader will stay on a word for only “300ms and the length and even the direction of the saccade  after this fixation are influenced by the meaning of the word currently fixated”.

Posner, Michael I., and Antonella Pavese. "Anatomy of Word and Sentence Meaning."Anatomy of Word and Sentence Meaning 95 (n.d.): 889-905.Http://www.pnas.org/content/95/3/899.full.pdf+html. Web.