Studying how the brain’s jukebox works

Let’s all sing along now.

“Bye, bye, Miss American Pie. Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry.... “

Mentally carrying that tune just now fired up the part of the brain that activates each time you hear that old song on the radio, new research suggests. And the same region of the brain will come to life when Don McLean’s voice loops in your mind throughout the day. (Sorry about that.)

Using brain scans to observe a common kind of musical recall, researchers at Dartmouth College have found that the auditory cortex, the neural nook that processes music coming through the ears, is also used to call up musical memories.

In the experiment, subjects listened to music through an iPod while researchers measured their brain activity.

“We found that people couldn’t help continuing the song in their heads, and when they did this, the auditory cortex remained active even though the music had stopped,” said David Kraemer, a graduate student and lead author of the article published recently in Nature.

The researchers also found that musical recognition differed depending on the song. Remembering a familiar song without lyrics, such as the “Pink Panther” theme, required deeper digging in the listening centers. Songs with lyrics, however, were retrieved from higher levels of the system, suggesting that words were key to the memory.

Dr. Mark Jude Tramo, director of the Institute for Music & Brain Science who was not involved with the study, said it provided further evidence that music is not processed exclusively in the left side of the brain, as was once believed.