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NCCAM features musical training lecture

Although music therapy is a hot topic, its mechanisms of action are still poorly understood. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), a division of the federal government that investigates unconventional therapies, invited Aniruddh Patel to talk about the possible effects of musical training on language and speech processing.

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American



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Although music therapy is a hot topic, its mechanisms of action are still poorly understood. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), a division of the federal government that investigates unconventional therapies, invited Aniruddh Patel to talk about the possible effects of musical training on language and speech processing. Below is a question and answer session with Dr. Patel from the NCCAM blog.

If you'd like to see the full NCCAM lecture, "Exploring the Impact of Music on Brain Function," it's up on NIH videocast.

About Princess Ojiaku

Hey there! I'm a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin Madison in the Neuroscience and Public Policy program. I'm also a musician who played in two bands in North Carolina, one called Pink Flag and another called Deals. My personal passions are science, music, and cycling as transportation.

I got into science as a kid while tagging along and watching my mom do experiments in her lab. I found that while I loved science, I didn't want to be alone in an ivory tower, crunching data that few others would understand. I also noticed that many other people thought science was this scary and incomprehensible entity of obscurity. When I realized that there were people working to make science fun and accessible to everyone, I knew that this was exactly what I wanted to do. The two things I find the most immensely interesting and continually impressing are music and neuroscience, so these are the topics that I'll focus on in my blog. Philosophy and politics are my second loves, so I might pop in an occasional post on these topics as well. Ultimately I am here to share things that give me wonder. I hope that reading Science with Moxie gives you a bit of that wonder too.

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