Music Therapy Today - World Federation of Music Therapy

Brain Reader Part 2: As we age, our brains start to pay too much attention to
In other words, it has to know to tune out the sound of that crinkling
paper and keep streaming in the words you're trying to read.
If you've ever tried reading with a dripping faucet in the background, you
probably know that sometimes this process doesn't always work per-
fectly.
"All of us can be annoyed by something like that at times, but most of us
are able to block such things out," says Monica Fabiani, a cognitive neu-
roscientist at the University of Illinois.
But Fabiani has shown that how successful we are at ignoring back-
ground information might actually be connected to how old we are.
In a recent study, she showed that people over seventy years of age have
a tougher time tuning out such distractions. (See OutDoorLink above!)
Fabiani and her team at the Beckman Institute used a new brain imaging
technique known as EROS. Fabiani and her husband Gabriele Gratton
are pioneering the use of EROS, which has some distinct advantages over
other imaging methods.
"EROS is a technique for looking at the brain in action," says Fabiani.
"It's based on the diffusion of light into the tissue." Using reflected light
patterns to show brain activity, EROS gives the researchers a good idea
of both the timing and location of brain events, all in a single technology.
Fabiani and her team measured brain activity in sixteen young and six-
teen older volunteers who read a book of their choice while distracting
tones played in the background. They adjusted the volume of the tones so
Odds and ends - themes and trends 456