Neurology Gangnam style

Image from Discover magazine online.


While I'm not sure just how much this advances neurology, I saw the headline and couldn't resist.

Chinese researchers have discovered characteristic patterns of brain activity associated Gangnam Style.

The reference is of course to 2012's one-hit-wonder "Gangnam Style" by K-pop legend, Psy. You may have thought his 15 minutes have long since evaporated, but that could never truly be. Because science.

In case you must be reminded, here's the song.

Now it's stuck in your head. Not part of the experiment, but let's press on.

In said experiment, 15 volunteers listened to the song and a "light music control," a piano composition called "A Comme Amour." The results? As per the article:

"Chen et al. say that Gangnam Style was associated with “significantly increased fMRI BOLD signals in the bilateral superior temporal cortices, left cerebellum, left putamen and right thalamus cortex”. They conclude that these results reveal something about the mechanisms for the “Gangnam Style-induced” positive emotional response. But I don’t."

Sorry. The "I" there in that quote is the writer of Neuroskeptic for Discover magazine. The article's author goes on to say that the results of the study are debatable as the response may be due to the test subjects' likely familiarity with "Gangnam Style" over the other piece. There were also objections to the volunteers being subjected to a PET scan, which involves the injection of a radioactive tracer dye which is suspected of increasing someone's likelihood of cancer.

Ethically dubious, yes. I'd also argue that exposing human test subjects to possibly repeating plays of "Gangnam Style" is rather inhumane in and of itself.

Naturally there is question as to just how useful any of this will be. Only further scientific jurisprudence will tell. I've long been a supporter of all kinds of research as you never know down the road what information will be useful. I'm trying to keep that same optimism here, but...yeah. It's tough. But there is at least one shining ray of hope offered by this study.

If Psy can be brought back for a university study, might we also revive William Hung?


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