brainmusic: fmri into musical sound

Hear what the brain scanner sees. Data from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are converted to musical sound. (This is the short version; See the 6-part "Music of the Hemispheres" for more.) Data are preprocessed into "independent components," regions of the brain which activate or deactivate in unison. Each component is assigned a tone, and the tone gets louder or softer in proportion to the degree of activity in the corresponding brain region. So, a melody is the moving center of metabolic energy, dancing all over the brain.
NOTE: Since this video was first posted, the brainmusic project has attracted the interest of the independent documentary film maker, Elisa da Prato. To check the status of the feature-length film (and to support the project), see http://musicofthehemispheres.com/ )

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• brainmusic
• brain
• experimental
• music
• sound
• cognitive
• neuroscience
• MRI
• consciousness
• neuroimaging
• sonification
• ICA
• independent
• component
• analysis
• fMRI
• functional
• magnetic
• resonance
• imaging
• pentatonic
• blues
• dan lloyd
• found
• new
• composer
• composition
• song
• newest

[Jdonovanford]

Assigning pentatonic scale to the signal... is not impressive, it is always gonna sound consonant and random. Give a child a bunch of pentatonic keys and will sound nice too... So this is a bit pointless... is money being invested in this kind of waste of time?

[dlloyd1984]

@Jdonovanford No investment;  it's strictly a hobby.

[jsymons1985]

What does OBS, FIX, and DRIVE mean?

[dlloyd1984]

@jsymons1985

Observe, Fixate, and Drive. These data are from a simulated driving experiment, where Drive means what you'd expect. Observe means watching a visual scene just like driving, without doing anything -- like being a passenger in a car. Fixate = lie there in the dark looking at a plus sign. Hope this is helpful.

[momomcfly]

Hi. I'm a French student and I'm working on a powerpoint presentation about your fMRI research and I was just wondering what the sick brain suffers from? Thanks in advance

[dlloyd1984]

In this video, the brain on screen is healthy (and mine). In other videos on this channel the data comes from schizophrenia patients. In "Listening to the Dynamic Brain" one example is from a subject with mild dementia. Also see the 6-part lecture for a full discussion and screen shots that you may find useful. Thanks for your interest.

[reynouts]

Cool project! Sounds good with the pentatonic scale. It would be fun to extract repeating music patterns that occur from these examples and make real songs out of it!

[Jdonovanford]

@dreamsofeden Me too.

[dreamsofeden]

@Jdonovanford

i wonder what your brain sounded like while you were typing that?

[dreamsofeden]

@Jdonovanford

i wonder what your brain sounded like while you were typing that?

[theoriginalmcsquare]

I was surprised, I didn't expect so many structured patterns in it, but u can actually call this music

[Qasimbajwaa]

the human mind is an amazing thing

[acrackinthemold]

This is awesome! Also the kind of science I'd love to volunteer for!