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Oliver Sacks, Music, and Memory (December 30, 2005, Two)

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Program Summary

English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote, “Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory...” What is it about music that so moves our spirit and mind that it remains long after our other memories fade? Dr. Oliver Sacks, who has spent his career exploring the workings of mind and brain, is intrigued with the indelible impression that music makes on our synapses and gray cells. One patient’s bout with encephalitis wiped his memory clean, but left his ability to play and conduct music completely intact. Just minutes after a performance, however, he had no recollection of the music at all. Another patient, left aphasic (without language) after a brain injury, was still able to sing unimpaired. Is music recorded in a different part of our brain than other memories? What can the latest imaging technologies, such as CT and PET scans, tell us about the relationship between music and memory? When will I ever get that awful song out of my head?

Guests

Oliver Sacks, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (Vintage, 1985); Awakenings (Vintage, 1973, 1990); An Anthropologist on Mars (Vintage, 1995); The Island of the Colorblind (Vintage, 1998); Oaxaca Journal (National Geographic Directions, 2002); clinical professor of neurology in the Albert Einstein College of Medicine; adjunct professor of neurology at the
New York University School of Medicine in New York, New York

Related Links and Resources

Oliver Sacks
NPR Weekend Edition, November 10, 2001: Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Man
Salon.com, December 1996: The last curious man
Wired.com, April 2002: The Fully Immersive Mind of Oliver Sacks
Science Friday: May 9, 2003 Hour Two: Music and The Brain

For Discussion:

• Who is Oliver Sacks? What has been his life’s work?

• What is the movie “Awakenings” about? What did Dr. Sacks learn about the brains of Parkinson’s patients?

• Musical people who have suffered memory loss such as Dr. Sacks’ patients can recall music they’ve already learned, but can they learn new music?

• What can affect our memory negatively? Why does memory worsen as we age? Why are some people better at remembering things than others?

• What is the philosophy behind music therapy?

Activities

Neuro notes. Explore how the brain interprets music at The Musical Brain from Neuroscience for Kids. Find out what an EEG tells us about music and brain activity, whether listening to Mozart can really make us smarter, and what monkeys think of the classics. Also at Neuroscience for Kids, students learn about the relationship between Memory and the Hippocampus, the section of the brain that is responsible for forming memories. A variety of games and activities on the Memory and Learning page provide demonstrations of the power of memory. In Pieces of Mind from Scientific American Frontiers, students examine and analyze the effects of various stimuli on memory. The activities are designed to sharpen their memory skills through mnemonic devices, associations, visual recall and memory maps.

It’s not over until the fat brain sings. “The Brain Opera” is a blending of science and music in which audience members experiment with high-tech electronic instruments; their efforts are recorded and later woven together by composer Tod Machover and a team of musicians and scientists from MIT’s Media Lab. The result is a unique audience-created composition. PBS’s “Scientific American Frontiers” featured “The Brain Opera” and produced educational activities to accompany the show in The Art of Science: Brain Music. Students can make their own simple instruments, record their sounds, and create a mix highlighting the recordings. They can also visit “The Brain Opera” site and learn how they can make and send in recordings that could become part of an upcoming performance.

Have we met? Investigate another type of sensory deficiency that Dr. Sacks has studied, visual agnosia, with a lesson plan from PBS NOVA Onlline. Stranger in the Mirror examines what happens when brain injury causes people to lose their ability to recognize objects and how their other senses pitch in to help them figure things out. Watch “Awakenings,” the movie that was inspired by Dr. Sacks work with Parkinson’s patients, and write an essay using questions you’ll find back at Neuroscience for Kids - Movie Assignment.

Try to remember... The Memory Exhibition from the Exploratorium is a fascinating journey into memory. A virtual sheep brain dissection explains the anatomy of memory, while playing with “droodles” tests your memory. Have students write down an account of something that happened to them and compare their account with what their parents, siblings, or friends remember.

Don’t forget to visit these other Science Friday Kids Connection pages about memory:
September 24, 2004, Hour One: Making Memories
May 9, 2003, Hour Two: How the Brain Interprets Music
Making False Memories (February 4, 2005, Hour Two)

Use the search box below to perform a Google search within any of the specifc sites or general domains mentioned in this Activities section.

Hear the Program

RealAudio format (courtesy NPR Online)
Windows Media format (courtesy NPR Online)
mp3 download (Science Friday Podcast)