Stefan Koelsch’s music research
By Science News
Stefan Koelsch’s team at the Freie Universität Berlin uses music to investigate the brain.
In a 2008 paper in NeuroReport, Koelsch and colleagues found that a single unexpected chord or tonal change can kick the amygdala into gear and elicit an emotional response. Click here to listen to an excerpt of the music that participants listened to.
In a 2006 paper in Human Brain Mapping, the researchers found that activity in emotional centers in the brain can be up or down regulated by music. Click here to hear pleasant and unpleasant versions of a tune used in the experiment.