Music and the Mind with Piano Prodigy Matthew Whitaker
In August of 2018, jazz pianist Matthew Whitaker visited Dr. Charles Limb's lab at the Sandler Neurosciences Center at University of California San Francisco for a functional MRI scan to study music and the brain.
Blind since birth, Matthew Whitaker has been called "the next Stevie Wonder" and a musical prodigy.
Could he in fact be using parts of the brain normally used for sight to "see" music? Launched in 2016 under the leadership of Renée Fleming and Dr. Francis Collins, Sound Health is a partnership between the Kennedy Center and National Institutes of Health, in association with the National Endowment for the Arts.
In its role as the largest funder of biomedical research in the world, the NIH is supporting studies that explore these key questions.
And in its role as the nation’s performing arts center, the Kennedy Center seeks to provide a platform for artists, researchers, neuroscientists, and music therapists to bring this fascinating work to a broader public.
Sound Health grew out of a 2013 year-round community engagement initiative by the National Symphony Orchestra of the same name that sends musicians into local hospitals, pediatric units, and military health centers in the Washington D.C. area to bring music and personal interaction to what can be stressful environments for patients, families and medical providers, who might not be able to regularly travel to the Kennedy Center or other performing arts venues.
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Link: https://youtu.be/3PipoHLF7VY
60 Minutes
Matthew Whitaker has been rocking crowds with his improvisational piano playing for most of his short life. He may be blind, but a neuroscientist has found Whitaker's visual cortex goes into overdrive when he pla
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/matthew-whitaker-blind-jazz-pianist-18-years-old-60-minutes-2020-02-23/
