Mozart on the Brain

Music affects us all. We sing with it and dance to it. We accompany our most important rituals with music. We sing hymns to our Gods and pen anthems for our nations. There is no culture in the history of mankind that has not had music. Science has always tried to explain music, to tell us why and how it affects us so. Because music's influence is so subjective and the brain is so poorly understood, this subject is especially susceptible to myths and exaggerations. We take a look at two of these socalled myths. We examine the “Mozart Effect”, the idea that passively listening to classical music can make you smarter. We also examine claims of music's ability to heal the human mind and body, reviewing cases of music therapy's use with children afflicted with autism.