Brainiac

The one thing you must read today: David Byrne sits down with Daniel Levitin (This is Your Brain on Music) for a fascinating conversation at Seed Magazine. You can also watch video from the interview.

DL: They were first discovered in Italy where a laboratory was recording from a cluster of neurons in monkeys’ brains. There was a monkey who was just sitting aside waiting his turn, watching another monkey reach for a banana and then peel it and eat it. And a clever technician noticed the cell recordings from this monkey and that his motor cortex was going crazy—the part of his brain that would be active if he were actually reaching for something and peeling it back. They thought this was strange. Do we have our wires crossed? You know, we’re measuring this monkey’s brain and not the other. They looked into all possible explanations.

They eventually replicated it with a number of different things, and it turned out that they had discovered what are now called, loosely, mirror neurons: neurons that mirror the activity of others. It’s sort of the old monkey see, monkey do. So then the question is, how does that happen? How is it that monkeys learn to imitate behavior?

DB: So when you watch a performance, sports for example, you’re not only watching somebody else do it. In a neurological kind of way, you’re experiencing it.

DL:Yeah, exactly. And when you see a musician, especially if you’re a musician yourself–

DB: —air guitar.

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