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The brains of improvising jazz musicians - such as Jamie Cullum - 'light up' in areas usually associated with words, a new study reveals

You may not imagine that rambling piano solos could be linked to language.

But the brains of improvising jazz musicians 'light up' in areas usually associated with words, a new study has revealed.

Jazz players engrossed in spontaneous musical improvisations showed activity in areas of the brain traditionally associated with spoken language and syntax - used for deciphering phrases and sentences.

However, this musical conversation shut down brain areas linked to semantics, which process the meaning of spoken language, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

The scientists used MRI scanners to track the brain activity of jazz musicians in the act of 'trading fours' - a process in which musicians participate in spontaneous back and forth instrumental exchanges, which usually last for four bars at a time.

This exchange is often referred to as 'musical conversation.'

The musicians introduce new melodies in response to each other's musical ideas, elaborating and modifying them over the course of a performance.

The study's results mean that the brain regions that process syntax, process communication in general, whether through language, or through music.

'Until now, studies of how the brain processes auditory communication between two individuals have been done only in the context of spoken language,' said Dr Charles Limb, an associate professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at the university's School of Medicine.

'But looking at jazz lets us investigate the neurological basis of interactive, musical communication as it occurs outside of spoken language.

'We've shown in this study that there is a fundamental difference between how meaning is processed by the brain for music and language.

The scientists used MRI scanners to track the brain activity of jazz musicians in the act of 'trading fours' - a process in which musicians participate in spontaneous back and forth instrumental exchanges, which usually last for four bars at a time. A stock image of an MRI scan is pictured

'Specifically, it's syntactic and not semantic processing that is key to this type of musical communication. Meanwhile, conventional notions of semantics may not apply to musical processing by the brain.'

For the study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, the scientists looked at the brain activity of 11 men aged 25 to 56 who were highly proficient in jazz piano performance.

During each 10-minute session of trading fours, one musician lay on his back inside the MRI machine with a plastic piano keyboard resting on his lap while his legs were elevated with a cushion.

A pair of mirrors were placed so the musician could look directly up while in the MRI machine and see the placement of his fingers on the keyboard.

The keyboard was specially constructed so it did not have metal parts that would be attracted to the large magnet in the scanner.

The improvisation between the musicians activated areas of the brain linked to syntactic processing for language, called the inferior frontal gyrus and posterior superior temporal gyrus.

In contrast, the musical exchange deactivated brain structures involved in semantic processing, called the angular gyrus and supramarginal gyrus.

Dr Limb said: 'When two jazz musicians seem lost in thought while trading fours, they aren't simply waiting for their turn to play.

'Instead, they are using the syntactic areas of their brain to process what they are hearing so they can respond by playing a new series of notes that hasn't previously been composed or practiced.'