This is your brain on freestyle rap
The researchers, led by Siyuan Liu, Ph.D., scanned the brains of 12 freestyle rap artists (who had at least 5 years of rapping experience) while they performed two tasks using an identical 8-bar musical track. For the first task, they improvised rhyming lyrics and rhythmic patterns guided only by the beat. In the second task, they performed a well-rehearsed set of lyrics.
During freestyle rapping, the researchers observed increases in brain activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, a brain region responsible for motivation of thought and action, but decreased activity in dorsolateral prefrontal regions that normally play a supervisory or monitoring role. Like an experienced parent who knows when to lay down the law and when to look the other way, these shifts in brain function may facilitate the free expression of thoughts and words without the usual neural constraints.
Freestyling also increased brain activity in the perisylvian system (involved in language production), the amygdala (an area of the brain linked to emotion), and cingulate motor areas, suggesting that improvisation engages a brain network that links motivation, language, mood, and action. Further studies of this network in other art forms that involve the innovative use of language, such as poetry and storytelling, could offer more insights into the initial, improvisatory phase of the creative process.Article: "Neural Correlates of Lyrical Improvisation: An fMRI Study of Freestyle Rap" by Siyuan Liu, et al. Scientific Report. Published online, November 15, 2012, 9:00 a.m. EST
Spokespersons: Siyuan Liu, Ph.D., and Allen Braun, M.D., are available to discuss the article. Dr. Braun is chief of the NIDCD voice, speech, and language branch.
Contact: To schedule interviews with Drs. Liu or Braun, contact Robin Latham in the NIDCD Office of Health Communication and Public Liaison, (301) 496-7243, firstname.lastname@example.org.
NIDCD supports and conducts research and research training on the normal and disordered processes of hearing, balance, taste, smell, voice, speech, and language and provides health information, based upon scientific discovery, to the public. For more information about NIDCD programs, see the website at http://www.nidcd.nih.gov.