This week we're listening back to stories about places where science and art intermingle.

And it's hard to imagine a headier mix than a dinner party with a guitar strumming geneticist

and a neuroscience loving opera singer. But that's exactly what brought together superstar

soprano, Renee Fleming, and renowned scientist Francis Collins. And they're here to serenade us

in this story about how art can help heal the brain. You're listening to shortwave

from NPR. People with disorders like anxiety and PTSD may get a range of treatments,

but there's only one that sounds like this.

NPR's resident brainiac John Hamilton is here to explain what a ukulele has to do with that

treatment. Or as the Hawaiian say ukulele. Yes. Hello John, nice to talk to you. Hi Eren,

how you doing? Doing great. I'm super excited to get to talk arts and science. So I can totally see

how strumming an instrument can be a source of joy and delight. But are you telling me that it can

also be a medical treatment? Yes. In this case, it is a form of what is known as arts therapy.

And if you're thinking that sounds a little bit woo-woo, so did I. But these treatments, you know,

music, painting, dance, poetry, they are starting to get some cred in the scientific world.

Right. And that ukulele treatment, it's become really important to this guy.

My name is Michael Schneider. I am from Marquette, Michigan, originally in the Upper Peninsula of

Michigan. Absolutely a gorgeous place to grow up. Join the Marine Corps in 1994. And I was an

active duty Marine for just short of 22 years. So Michael worked on military helicopters and planes.

He told me that in 2005, his job led to two separate brain injuries. I had a traumatic brain

injury when I was involved in a helicopter incident on board a US naval vessel, a portion of the

airplane exploded away from the airplane and hit me in the head. Later that same year, I was working

on a high pressure altitude chamber. On the way down from altitude, I had a central nervous system

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