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/--------- E-mail Sponsored by Fox Searchlight ------------\ SIDEWAYS IS THE BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR! Critics in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston agree... SIDEWAYS is the BEST PICTURE of the year. The award-winning film from Alexander Payne has also earned 7 GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATIONS including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Screenplay. SIDEWAYS stars Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Sandra Oh and Virginia Madsen. SIDEWAYS is now playing in select theaters. Watch the trailer at: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/sideways/index_nyt.html \----------------------------------------------------------/ Side Effects: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Amygdala: Word as Earworm January 11, 2005 By JAMES GORMAN My infatuation with the amygdala has led me to wonder where aphasia and amusia overlap, a subject that neurologists have been investigating for many years. Damage to the brain can interfere with spoken language - aphasia. But it can also harm the ability to hear and produce melody. All this goes on in some part of the temporal lobe, not the amygdala, which is an almond-size structure in the brain (the word comes from the Greek for almond) that is involved with fear, emotion, sexuality and other aspects of humanity that lie below or behind the conscious mind. But this is off the point. I am infatuated with the word "amygdala," not the brain structure, although I suppose the meaning and the science contribute to the word's appeal. But I like its sound, you might say its musicality. And that has made me wonder about how speech and music overlap. For example, can a word be an earworm? An earworm is a tune that lodges itself in the brain and will not be moved. Songs like "It's a Small World" or "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" can become earworms. In a different class, "L� ci darem la mano," from Mozart's "Don Giovanni," might insinuate itself into every waking moment, although it seems wrong to compare such a lovely aria to an invertebrate. Words are not music, however, even though they may work their way into corners of our brain and then insist that they be pronounced, often, sometimes at inopportune moments. A friend who is given to word fixations once fell into the grip of the word "vomeronasal," as in, "In humans, the vomeronasal organ that is so important for other mammals in the perception of pheromones appears to be vestigial." It was some kind of worm, certainly. Vomeronasal is vaguely unpleasant. Amygdala has a deep and mysterious sound: uh-MIG-duh-luh. For all I know, its allure may touch neurons in the very structure it denotes. I've been thinking of it in a variety of contexts. I like it as the given name of an ethnically indecipherable femme fatale in a James Bond movie - Amygdala McBain. As she sways into the laboratory of the evil neuroscientist on curare-tipped spike heels, Sean Connery cracks a crooked, predatory smile and says, "Amygdala, my dear, what an unexpected pleasure." It's the juxtaposition of the hard and primitive "myg" with the more liquid "la" that gets you. And in between, of course, is the alveolar stop, the "d" that does indeed stop the word if you let it. Amygdala is not an easy word. It doesn't say itself. You have to speak it, with a conscious effort, like a spell or imprecation. It's pretty close to music, but not quite. Music and speech are similar and somehow linked in the brain, but they are also separate. One can have amusia, for example, and be unable to perceive melody, but have no difficulty with speech. One can have aphasia and yet keep one's musical abilities intact, as in the case of Vissarion Shebalin, a 20th-century Russian composer who lost some of his ability to speak and understand language because of strokes, but was still able to compose music. Some people are born with various degrees of amusia. Not only pitch is involved, but timing as well. Some people cannot keep time or dance to music. Lesions in the brain can cause terrifying losses, like the one described in The Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry in 2000 about an amateur musician who suffered aphasia that receded, leaving speech intact but depriving him of something that had previously enriched his life. "Sounds are empty and cold," the paper quotes him as saying. "Singing sounds like shouting to me." Music made him feel uncomfortable, the researchers reported. And yet, he was able to understand language and the changing tones of language. The paper did not report whether he was able to savor language, to enjoy the pleasures afforded by words that seem similar to the pleasures of melody. How strange that words and melody, which can be married so completely, can sometimes be severed. How odd that a person could appreciate poetry and not melody, that somewhere in the brain a line is drawn between the lyrics and the tune. It seems wrong, because all the best words are musical. I know amygdala is. I have evidence. There are several bands called "Amygdala" that I found on the Web. And I was tempted by a CD on a German label by an artist named Laszlo Hortobagyi titled "Traditional Musik of Amygdala," which was described as "an imaginary journey throughout the entire Amygdala Empire in the spirit of the ethno-musicology expeditions at the turn of the century." Well, not that tempted. Musicians, by definition, have an ear for music. Someday, perhaps, we will replace the word almond with amygdala. Then we could have a candy bar called Amygdala Joy. And perhaps some aspect of joy actually resides in, where else, the amygdala. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/11/health/11side.html?ex=1106550672&ei=1&en=6aecd4bff924cebe --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! 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