Does Music Feed the Mind?

SCIENCE -- May 13, 2011 at 1:42 PM EDT

Does Music Feed the Mind?

Does music feed the mind? Does improvising in a jazz band activate different parts of the brain than performing composed music?

For the National Science Foundation's* latest Science Nation piece, NewsHour Science Correspondent Miles O'Brien profiles Georgia Tech music professor Parag Chordia, whose research shows that creativity sparked from music can help students grasp other concepts in math, science and engineering. And brain scans, he says, do reveal a distinct difference between improvisation and more organized music.

For the record, the National Science Foundation is an underwriter of the NewsHour.

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