This is Your Brain on Music: Understanding a Human Obsession

A fascinating exploration of the relationship between music and the mind and the role of melodies in shaping our lives. Whether you load your iPod with Bach or Bono, music has a significant role in your life even if you never realized it. Why does music evoke such powerful moods? The answers are at last becoming clear, thanks to revolutionary neuroscience and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. Both a cutting-edge study and a tribute to the beauty of music itself, "This Is Your Brain on Music" unravels a host of mysteries that affect everything from pop culture to our understanding of human nature, including: Are our musical preferences shaped in utero? Is there a cutoff point for acquiring new tastes in music? What do PET scans and MRIs reveal about the brains response to music? Is musical pleasure different from other kinds of pleasure?