[NewMusic] improv brain shutdown

[Tim Perkis]

      Study: Prefrontal Cortex In Jazz Musicians Winds Down When
      Improvising

<http://www.scientificblogging.com/psychobiology>

Scientists funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other 
Communication Disorders (NIDCD) have found that, when jazz musicians are 
engaged in the highly creative and spontaneous activity known as 
improvisation, a large region of the brain involved in monitoring one's 
performance is shut down, while a small region involved in organizing 
self-initiated thoughts and behaviors is highly activated.

...All of this was accomplished while the musicians lay on their backs 
with their heads and torsos inside an fMRI scanner and their knees bent 
upward. The plastic keyboard, which was shortened to fit inside the 
scanner and which had its magnetic parts removed for safety, rested on 
the musicians' knees....

http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/study_prefrontal_cortex_in_jazz_musicians_winds_down_when_improvising