Hey, it's Alan, and I just wanted to let you know that you can now listen to the ongoing

history of new music early and ad-free on Amazon music, included with Prime.

Here we is a very simple question with a very complicated answer, and I'm not even sure we know

the answer. I've asked it before, and I'm going to ask it again, why do we have music? There is no known

evolutionary or biological need for it. We could probably exist as a species without it,

but, you know, that would make life pretty dull. But our brains come hardwired for music.

There are at least six separate parts of the brain that deal with music,

and they all work together. Let me give you some examples. There's the auditory cortex in the temporal

lobe, which stretches across our brains just behind the ears. We use this for processing sound

information, including pitch and melody when it comes into our ears.

But it also goes into action when we just mentally replay a song in our heads without actually hearing it.

It appears that the auditory cortex is where the bulk of our music memories live.

It's our musical database, if you want.

It's strongly connected to the hippocampus, which is the source of the bulk of

our regular memories, along with memories often tied to emotions. So this explains why music

can trigger strong feelings, and it's also why a song can help us remember certain events.

And musical memories can survive long after the rest of the brain has

been compromised, has degenerated. There's the medial prefrontal cortex, which is found on the

inner surface of the frontal lobe, which sits just behind her forehead. When someone is

afflicted with dementia or Alzheimer's, this is one of the last parts of the brain to go.

Musical memories survive there even when all other memories are wiped out.

There is so much wondrous stuff about music and the brain and our bodies.

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