Lecture A Biological Perspective on the
Transformative Power of Music

Aniruddh D. Patel, PhD
Tufts University & Neurosciences Institute

Ecolab Theatre
Session I  |  9:35am – 10:15am
 

Offering a compelling, evidence-based discussion of the power of music to impact the human brain and its non-musical cognitive functions – such as language processing, attention, and memory – the highly regarded author of Music, Language, and the Brain shares his insightful work on the cognitive, neural, and evolutionary foundations of musicality, highlighting music as a biologically fundamental transformative technology.

Biography

Aniruddh (Ani) Patel is a Professor of Psychology at Tufts University, where he studies the cognitive, neural, and evolutionary foundations of musicality. His 2008 book Music, Language, and the Brain (Oxford Univ. Press) won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award, and his 2015 lecture series for The Great Courses, titled Music and the Brain, has reached a wide audience. Renée Fleming invited him to contribute a chapter on musicality, evolution, and animal responses to music to her 2024 book Music and the Mind: Harnessing The Arts for Health and Wellness.  Patel has served as President of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition, and is a member of the Brain, Mind, and Consciousness program in the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR).  He earned his PhD in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, working with Edward O. Wilson and Evan Balaban.  Prior to joining Tufts he worked at The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, CA, a research institute led by the Nobel Laureate Gerald M. Edelman. Patel has held fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and from the Guggenheim Foundation.