The Highs and Lows of Cortical Connectivity: Insights from Extreme Cases in Musical Ability

Psyche Loui
Neuro Imaging Laboratory
Harvard Medical School

Friday March 20  
2 pm
3105 Tolman Hall

Abnormal connectivity in the human brain has been implicated in various neurological conditions and psychiatric disorders. Psyche Loui will present three ongoing studies that relate normal and abnormal cortical connectivity to unique aspects of musical behavior: Absolute Pitch, tone-deafness, and musical bilingualism. Using a combination of diffusion tensor imaging and psychophysics, the goal is to address the question of how neural connections subserve musical ability. Incidentally, results will also answer the question of what makes Mozart different from Cameron Diaz.