What if Michelangelo Listened to Lady Gaga: SculptingYour Brain with Music

Did music influence Michelangelo? If so, was it the sounding of a harmonic chord, the new musical aesthetic for the period? Did it contribute to the transformation of a block of Carrara marble into David, the masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture? What form would David have taken if sculpted in the 21st century, with such a broad range of music genres and styles?  Lady Gaga anyone… These are the kinds of questions I cogitate in moments of quiet. Continue…

New blog post at Cognitive Connections. Thanks for the invitation to contribute as a guest blogger Dr. Lise Delong!

What we hear can affect how we work | Marketplace from American Public Media.

This is an interview I did with Kai Ryssdal on Marketplace yesterday. You can hear the show or read the transcript. Let me know your thoughts on how sounds in your work environment effect your productivity.

This afternoon I heard exciting news from one of my editors at Hudson Stress Press-Penguin Group USA that I just had to share.

Last week Apple released its iTunes Rewind selections for 2011, revealing the best music, apps, TV shows, movies, books and podcasts of the year. And… Healing at the Speed of Sound® was awarded as one of the ’Top 10 Enhanced Books of the Year’!

This is a prestigious honor awarded to only a handful of books selected by Apple’s editorial staff, and based on best-selling purchases of the year.  I’m thrilled to see the great response we continue to get to the book from the media, our readers, and now from Apple!

This is my first post since the book was released on September 29th. The book launch has been a whirlwind of activity. Now that things are settling down somewhat I plan to start sharing information here more frequently. Thank you all for your support!

Just launched a new website for the book. Let me know what you think!

What more can be said than has in the last 12 hours that about a man that forever changed the world.

Thank you 

Three years of planning, research, writing, and editing have led to this moment!

Welcome to Healing at the Speed of Sound®.

Thank you to our publisher Hudson Street Press, Penguin Group USA and the entire Healing at the Speed of Sound team for helping this dream become a reality!

Available in ALL book formats everywhere books and Enhanced eBooks are sold.

Use it or lose it, we are all familiar with this adage. It is true for the body and true for the brain.

Without sufficient sensory stimulation a child’s brain does not develop as it should. Nor does an adult brain maintain full  functionality as a  result of negative plasticity. The auditory system thrives with the right input and suffers if deprived of sound or overstimulated by noise.

A new study by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania shows that declines in hearing ability may accelerate gray mater atrophy in auditory areas of the brain and increase the listening effort necessary for older adults to successfully comprehend speech.

Hearing aids can be an effective intervention. Another approach to  consider is music listening therapy. This is  neuroauditory training to improve sound brain fitness in part by stimulating the frequency bands where the deficits exist with specially modified music.  There has been good success helping people with mild hearing loss through the use of The Listening Program®. In many cases listeners no longer require hearing aids, because they trained their brain to better understand what it hears (auditory processing).

Many audiologists will share that when patients with mild hearing loss wear hearing aids for a period of time that their auditory discrimination improves on tests without the hearing aids. This is due to the brain now being able to perceive the auditory signal through sound amplification. The increased signal is enough to improve brain processing. In my opinion, a course of The Listening Program should be considered prior to using hearing aids in cases of mild hearing loss, and definitely needs to be used along with hearing aids. This is something proactive that can be done to stimulate the brain so people can continue to enjoy the richness that exists within the sounds of our loved ones voices, music, and nature.

Read more about this study published in the Journal of Neuroscience here.

If you play an instrument, this should be music to your ears: According to a new study in Psychology and Aging, lifelong musicians experience fewer age-related hearing problems than non-musicians.

Read more of my interview with Madeline Haller in Men’s Health.

The highly anticipated album Tony Bennett Duets II will be released on September 20th.

The late Amy Winehouse shines in her Swan song “Body and Soul”, a permanent edition to my jazz standards playlist.

NPR was  kind enough to give us all a first listen today.  Enjoy!

#soundheals- Share the message and learn more.

A couple days ago I posted an article Ouch That Hurts about an auditory condition called misophonia in which annoying sounds can cause major rage. This morning The Today Show did a segment on this topic that you can view here.

Most of the research into the cause of this and related disorders appears to be focused on auditory mechanisms.  However, Advanced Brain Technologies Scientific Advisory Board Member and audiologist Dr. Jay Lucker of Howard University has been researching strong behavioral reactions to sound in children and suggests it is the emotional reactions must be dealt with. This was his response to a question we posed on the Healing at the Speed of Sound Facebook page.

“I am in the process of revising a manuscript for publication on loud and annoying sounds in children. Findings revealed that this is NOT an auditory based problem in the overwhelming number of children seen in this study. The major problem is our negative emotional reactions to loud and annoying sounds. We must deal with the emotional reactions more so than the auditory based issues for most of our children with sound tolerance problems.”

Ouch! Do You Ever Find Sounds Annoying or Uncomfortable? What Are They? Post your response here.