It's said to soothe the savage beast. It can make your newborn child smarter. Plus, if you play it, you can get cool haircuts and laid often.

Humans have been making music for thousands of years. But only recently has its effects on the human mind been studied in a scientific manner. Music makes us swoon, yearn, weep, laugh, gets us all lovey-dovey or can work us up into an aggressive, martial frenzy. But how?

That's what a group of scientists at McGill and the Université de Montréal are trying to find out, with a new joint institute called (drum roll please) the International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS). The head researchers are Dr. Robert Zatorre of McGill's Montreal Neurological Institute and Dr. Isabelle Peretz of UdeM's Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Science. UdeM donated a fair amount of space to BRAMS, although it is not a new department affiliated with any one university.

Technical virtuoso

In a phone interview, Zatorre speaks with the calm, level voice of a professional scientist. But kind of a hip one, name-dropping bands and subcultures with ease. Trained as a classical organist in his undergrad years, he says he "realized he would be a better scientist than a musician" but would incorporate music into his research - which he's been doing for over 20 years.

What makes studying the effects of music on the brain so interesting for researchers are the multitude of different avenues of research possible. "Advanced music touches on a lot of different things," Zatorre says. "What are the mechanisms in the brain that are affected by music? How does a performer sit down and play a piece of music for half an hour from memory? That's an amazing piece of cognition."

The BRAMS team relies on advanced technology to get an inside look at the mind of a musician or music listener. "We use MRI to look at the anatomy of the brain, which is the usual way to use an MRI, and to measure anatomical changes in the brain - MRIs are also used to find brain tumours," he says. "But in a more global way, if we do an MRI on someone who is trained musically, they'll have changes in the parts of the brain that control fingers, and it's possible to show enhancement in certain auditory parts. But in the majority of cases, we look for brain activity. The brain uses oxygen when it's active, so with our scanning protocols it can pick up changes in oxygen use. This way, we can see what parts of the brain are responsible for controlling different functions."

Because music affects not just the brain but also the rest of the body, the BRAMS scientists have also examined singing, toe-tapping, the "chills down the spine" effect, mood manipulation and the effect music has on physical pain. Dentists, for example, often pipe in music when fiddling around in a patient's mouth. "Is it merely for relaxation and distraction [for the patient], or does it actually reduce the pain threshold?" Zatorre asks. "It seems that it's related to endorphins and opiates that might be released in the brain, but that theory's still up for grabs."

Exposed early and often

They are also studying the innate musical knowledge of casual music fans. Zatorre says laypeople can identify discordant notes in a melody, for instance, because of prolonged exposure to music at an early age. But the music they are exposed to is generally Western - classical, jazz or rock/pop. Research has yet to branch out to study, say, classical Chinese music.

"We're stuck with Western music for now solely because the people involved in the study have knowledge of Western music," Zatorre says. "It's hard to find someone anywhere in the world who has not been exposed to Western music." It's so widely disseminated, he says, that even in the more remote parts of the world, people have probably heard some Western songs, which affects their overall musical knowledge. "What, then, is the influence of early exposure?" he asks.

Still, there is much, much more to learn about the human brain. "We try to cover the whole musical spectrum," he says. "Different styles of music have different components that are of interest. Why can a classical pianist play a 30-minute sonata from memory? That's not typical in pop, where musicians tend to learn chords. And if you want to study improvisation, you look at jazz. A classically-trained musician has no clue how to improvise."

And as for that theory about playing Mozart to babies? "Well, I think it's a good way to sell CDs," he says. "But I think that theory's way overblown."