© The Author (2006). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Book Review |
Music, motor control and the brain
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Since the classical treatise by Seashore (1938)
on the ‘Psychology of music’, the lively interest in the relationship between mental operations and performing music has initiated a series of books and symposia dedicated to this topic.
‘Brain and music’ was part of this inquiry and has been studied since the early years of Neurology. Clinical observations of patients with impairment of their musical abilities such as amusia revealed selective disturbances of music with preserved language capacities or the reverse condition. The correlation with the underlying brain pathology emphasized the differential role of right versus left hemisphere damage in making music. The role of genetic factors for the acquisition of music (Schenker, 1935; 1979) and language (Chomsky, 1968) was highlighted by the long-standing nature versus nurture discussion about the biological roots of these specifically human abilities. Music and the Brain, edited by Macdonald Critchley and R.A. Henson in
Würzburg, Germany
Düsseldorf, GermanyE-mail: kv.toyka@mail.uni-wuerzburg.de