Samstag, April 24, 2004
Der Mozart Effekt
NewScientist.com news service
New research has revealed a molecular basis for the "Mozart effect" -
the observation that a brief stint of Mozart, but not other music,
may improve learning and memory.
Rats that heard a Mozart sonata expressed higher levels of several
genes involved in stimulating and changing the connections between
brain cells, the study showed. The team, including the researcher who
first proposed the Mozart effect, hope the results will help them
design music therapy treatments for people suffering from
neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.
The Mozart effect first came to light in a 1993 paper in Nature (vol
365, p 611), when Fran Rauscher, a neuroscientist at the University
of Wisconsin Oshkosh, US, and colleagues showed that college students
who listened to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major for 10
minutes performed better on a spatial reasoning test than students
who listened to new age music or nothing at all.
The findings sparked excitement from the general public - specially
designed Mozart CDs leapt up the music charts - and some scepticism
from the scientific community.
Rhythmic qualities
Scientists argued over whether the phenomenon had a relatively simple
explanation, such as just improving a person's mood, or if the effect
was tied to a unique quality of the Mozart's compositions. One study
reported that the particular rhythmic qualities of Mozart's music
mimic some rhythmic cycles occurring in human brains.
Now Rauscher and her collaborator Hong Hua Li, a geneticist at
Stanford University in California, think they have found the
molecular basis of the Mozart effect. Their study used rats, which,
like humans, perform better on learning and memory tests after
listening to the sonata.
The researchers found that these smarter rats had increased gene
expression of BDNF, a neural growth factor, CREB, a learning and
memory compound, and synapsin I, a synaptic growth protein, in their
hippocampus, as compared to control rats who had listened to
equivalent amounts of white noise.
"The findings are intriguing," says Howard Gardner, an IQ expert at
Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and sceptic of the
Mozart effect. "It suggests stimulation in general has measurable
neurochemical effects. But whether this effect is due to music, let
alone Mozart, still has to be determined." Other experiments have
shown that enriching a rat's environment with toys can spur growth of
new neurons.
Electrical activity
Whether Mozart is in fact a special form of enrichment or not, his
presence is already being felt in the clinic.
Patients with Alzheimer's disease perform better on spatial and
social tasks after listening to the sonata. And playing Mozart for
severely epileptic patients quietens the electrical activity
associated with seizures, while other kinds of music do not.
Li hopes to use this latest work to design better music therapy for
patients suffering form a variety of neurological disease or brain
injuries. She and Rauscher also plan to study if there is a critical
period during development for the Mozart effect, and if other types
of music have the same properties.
The new research was presented by at the Cognitive Neuroscience
Symposium in San Francisco this week.
Emily Singer, San Francisco
New research has revealed a molecular basis for the "Mozart effect" -
the observation that a brief stint of Mozart, but not other music,
may improve learning and memory.
Rats that heard a Mozart sonata expressed higher levels of several
genes involved in stimulating and changing the connections between
brain cells, the study showed. The team, including the researcher who
first proposed the Mozart effect, hope the results will help them
design music therapy treatments for people suffering from
neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.
The Mozart effect first came to light in a 1993 paper in Nature (vol
365, p 611), when Fran Rauscher, a neuroscientist at the University
of Wisconsin Oshkosh, US, and colleagues showed that college students
who listened to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major for 10
minutes performed better on a spatial reasoning test than students
who listened to new age music or nothing at all.
The findings sparked excitement from the general public - specially
designed Mozart CDs leapt up the music charts - and some scepticism
from the scientific community.
Rhythmic qualities
Scientists argued over whether the phenomenon had a relatively simple
explanation, such as just improving a person's mood, or if the effect
was tied to a unique quality of the Mozart's compositions. One study
reported that the particular rhythmic qualities of Mozart's music
mimic some rhythmic cycles occurring in human brains.
Now Rauscher and her collaborator Hong Hua Li, a geneticist at
Stanford University in California, think they have found the
molecular basis of the Mozart effect. Their study used rats, which,
like humans, perform better on learning and memory tests after
listening to the sonata.
The researchers found that these smarter rats had increased gene
expression of BDNF, a neural growth factor, CREB, a learning and
memory compound, and synapsin I, a synaptic growth protein, in their
hippocampus, as compared to control rats who had listened to
equivalent amounts of white noise.
"The findings are intriguing," says Howard Gardner, an IQ expert at
Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and sceptic of the
Mozart effect. "It suggests stimulation in general has measurable
neurochemical effects. But whether this effect is due to music, let
alone Mozart, still has to be determined." Other experiments have
shown that enriching a rat's environment with toys can spur growth of
new neurons.
Electrical activity
Whether Mozart is in fact a special form of enrichment or not, his
presence is already being felt in the clinic.
Patients with Alzheimer's disease perform better on spatial and
social tasks after listening to the sonata. And playing Mozart for
severely epileptic patients quietens the electrical activity
associated with seizures, while other kinds of music do not.
Li hopes to use this latest work to design better music therapy for
patients suffering form a variety of neurological disease or brain
injuries. She and Rauscher also plan to study if there is a critical
period during development for the Mozart effect, and if other types
of music have the same properties.
The new research was presented by at the Cognitive Neuroscience
Symposium in San Francisco this week.
Emily Singer, San Francisco
Build this XAML Rendering Engine for Your .NET Apps Today
Build this XAML Rendering Engine for Your .NET Apps Today: "(Adam Young) XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language) is an XML dialect that developers will use to author applications for Longhorn, the next version of the Microsoft Windows operating system. A new user services layer, code named 'Avalon,' lets you define a single set of markup pages and code which can then run as both a standard Windows Forms thick client application or as a browser-based thin client application.
Under Longhorn, browser-based apps will have a much richer UI, while thick clients will become self-updating and share the same navigational model as Web applications. This is a big step forward from the current model, where thick and thin clients run on different platforms and require mastery of completely different technologies and development techniques."
Under Longhorn, browser-based apps will have a much richer UI, while thick clients will become self-updating and share the same navigational model as Web applications. This is a big step forward from the current model, where thick and thin clients run on different platforms and require mastery of completely different technologies and development techniques."
Freitag, April 23, 2004
silicon.de ~ das Info-Netzwerk f�r IT und Business
silicon.de ~ das Info-Netzwerk f�r IT und Business: "VoIP sieht starker Regulierung entgegen"
Mittwoch, April 21, 2004
Testticker News: Regulierungsbehörde startet Anhörung zu VoIP
Skype - Getting Started With PocketSkype
