MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit

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My Studies

Most of my work is based on my interest in why we move to rhythm, and how movement and rhythm may be connected in the brain. I have done a few brain scanning studies examining how different motor areas in the brain respond to different types of rhythm. I'm interested in how rhythm and music may be processed in the brains of those who have dysfunction in movement areas (such as Parkinson's disease). Finally, the range of individual differences in rhythmic ability are very intriguing, and I am beginning a series of behavioural and fMRI studies to examine why there is such a striking range in the healthy human population.

You can read a bit about an earlier set of rhythm studies comparing regular and irregular rhythms, measuring brain activity with fMRI (Grahn and Brett 2007).

I did a follow-up study that examined how Parkinson's disease patients process certain types of rhythm (Grahn and Brett 2009).

This fMRI study measures how different accent types influence our brain's response to rhythms (Grahn and Rowe, 2009).

Here, my colleagues (Devin McAuley and Molly Henry) and I looked at cross-modal interactions between auditory and visual rhythms, that is, how hearing a rhythm may influence what you feel when you then watch a 'visual rhythm' (Grahn, Henry, and McAuley, in press).