Not Quite Thought Control: Scientists Recreate Pink Floyd Song from Brain Signals

The human brain can do a remarkably good job at recreating music it’s heard — anyone who has ever had an earworm knows that. But now scientists take this a step further: They recreated a song from just the brain signals of people as they listened to the tune — fittingly in this case, 'Another Brick in the Wall Pt 1.'

The startling findings were published this week in the journal PLOS Biology.

The experiment involved 29 people with epilepsy who had electrodes implanted on the surface of their brains. The group listened to the Pink Floyd anthem and then the researchers measured electrical activity in parts of the brain associated with how humans perceive music. 

Using the information obtained from the electrodes, the researchers were able to make the “first recognizable song reconstructed from direct brain recordings.”

The researchers used mathematical models to determine which parts of the brain were processing which aspects of the song — they discovered a previously unknown part of the brain that responded to rhythm, and specifically, the staccato rhythm guitar that forms the backbone of the song.

That area, which lies in the superior temporal gyrus, was previously known to be responsible for processing certain sounds and speech. Other parts of the region seemed to light up during sections of the song that contained vocals while another reacted to the onset of lead guitar and synthesizer parts. 

The scientists note that the findings don't answer all the outstanding questions around how the brain processes music, such as which parts of the brain are involved in understanding chords or reading sheet music. But they do show that it is possible to recreate a song and play it back using electric signals from the brain in at least some cases — a finding with potential application for future brain-computer interfaces designed to enable speech.

That research would add “another brick in the wall of our understanding of music processing in the human brain," the scientists said.