How the brain processes music—and uses it to boost function

From babies to the elderly, music touches our emotions and lifts our spirits. A familiar melody can transport us back to a time and place. So how does the brain process music, and can music boost our cognitive performance?

KCRW’s Jonathan Bastian talks with David Silbersweig, neurologist and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Stanley Cobb Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, about the therapeutics and impacts of listening to music and how it can help with degenerative brain conditions like depression, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease.

Brigham and Women's Hospital. Photo courtesy of Brigham and Women’s Hospital