Scientists have successfully reconstructed Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall Part 1’ by decoding the brain activity of patients who listened to the song while waiting for brain surgery. It is hoped that the research will one day help grant those suffering from paralysis and developmental or neurological disorders a more expressive voice.
The data used in the study was captured in 2008 and 2015 by a collection of 2,379 electrodes that were attached directly to the brains of 29 individuals who were awaiting epilepsy surgery at the Albany Medical Center in New York. During this time, the patients passively listed to Pink Floyd’s classic song ‘Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1’, in the hope that the data would help researchers better understand how the brain perceives music.
Another Brick in the wall #PinkFloyd pic.twitter.com/Zu3HDZ0zOn
— Pink Floyd ? (@Just_pinkfloyd) August 14, 2023
In a new paper published in the journal PLOS Biology, scientists revealed that they have been able to succesfully decode the electrical activity from the auditory cortex in order to reconstruct a recognizable version of Pink Floyd’s song. The reconstructed version of the song, which was decoded from electrode readings and re-encoded into a recognizable musical piece using an A.I. program, can be listened to here.
"Decoding from the auditory cortices, which are closer to the acoustics of the sounds, as opposed to the motor cortex, which is closer to the movements that are done to generate the acoustics of speech, is super promising," explained postdoctoral fellow Ludovic Bellier of at the University of California, Berkeley, who was one of the authors of the new study. "It will give a little color to what's decoded."
A whole new field for brain machine interfaces
The researchers hope that their work will one day aid in the creation of a brain to speech system that would help those suffering from paralysis communicate with a voice rich with musical elements like stress and intonation, that help convey meaning beyond the scope of robotically delivered words.
“As this whole field of brain machine interfaces progresses, this gives you a way to add musicality to future brain implants for people who need it, someone who's got ALS or some other disabling neurological or developmental disorder compromising speech output,” explained study co-author Robert Knight, who is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.
“It gives you an ability to decode not only the linguistic content, but some of the prosodic content of speech, some of the affect. I think that's what we've really begun to crack the code on."
Knight hopes that future advancements in brain recording sensors will allow such a system to work by quickly reading electrical signals from the outside of the skull, rather than via electrodes placed directly on the surface of the brain through invasive surgery, as is currently the case.
The researchers were also able to confirm that the right hemisphere of the human brain is more involved with the perception of music than the left side of the brain, while also identifying regions that dealt with the detection of musical rhythms.
Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer
