Scanning a brain that’s out of tune

From Orlando, Fla., at a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience

Consider a man who was such a bad piano student as a child that his teacher returned the lesson fees. By scanning this man’s neural activity, researchers have now shown that his brain doesn’t react normally to music.

A small but uncertain percentage of people have trouble recognizing melodies or playing music, a condition some researchers call dysmusia or amusia and liken to the reading disability dyslexia (SN: 11/25/00, p.