The Virtual Piano Study

In explaining how our brains can change in response to our thoughts and our intentions, Richard Davidson shared this experiment in his book, The Emotional Life of Your Brain (Hudson Street Press, 2012)...

"Scientists [at Harvard University] ... had a group of volunteers learn a simple five-finger keyboard piece, practicing over and over for a week with their right hand. Then they used neuroimaging to determine how much of the motor cortex was responsible for moving those fingers, finding that the intense practice had expanded the relevant region. This was not too surprising, since other experiments had found that learning specific movements causes such an expansion. But the scientists had the other half of their group of volunteers only imagine playing the notes; they did not actually touch the ivories. Then the researchers measured whether the motor cortex had noticed. It had. The region that controls the fingers of the right hand had expanded in the virtual pianists just as it had in the volunteers who had actually played the piano. Thinking, and thinking alone, had increased the amount of space the motor cortex devoted to a specific function."

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