Toward an epigenetic view of our musical mind

Abstract

We are transient beings, in a world of constantly changing culture. At home in the fields of Art and Science, seemingly capable of magnificent abstractions, humans have an intense need to externalize their insights. Music is an art and a highly transmissible cultural product, but we still have an incomplete understanding of how our musical experience shapes and is vividly retained within our brain, and how it affects our behavior. However, the developing field of social epigenetics is now helping us to describe how communication and emotion, prime hallmarks of music, can be linked to a transmissible, biochemical change. © 2012 Brigati, Saccuman, Banelli, Di Vinci, Casciano, Borzì, Forlani, Allemanni and Romani.