Areas of the brain not available to consciousness communicate what they rate as important by way of the body.

Subconscious parts of the brain play a role in cognition by sending signals to the body.

Cognition is built on the brain’s maps, which consist of images of the real world outside the brain.

People often say that music is an “embodied” experience. What does this term, embodied, imply? On one level, it refers to physically sensing the music in our body or moving our body in response to the music. On a deeper level, it means that our experience of music is a team effort involving our brain and our entire physical being—a powerful expression of the mind-body connection. This post, Part 1 of a three-part series, will examine the neurology behind embodiment. In Parts 2 and 3, we’ll dive into models of embodiment that explain why we like (or dislike) certain songs or kinds of music.

Antonio Damasio is a brilliant neurologist who brings modern neurological science to bear upon profound questions, such as how we think and make decisions. His findings reveal not only that the brain—and, hence, the mind—is inseparable from the body, but also that our cognition (rational thinking processes) relies upon the body as well as the brain.

Damasio is not the first to explore this territory. He traces this theme back to the 17th century based upon the opposing arguments of Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) and René Descartes (1596-1650). Descartes claimed that the mind and the body were separate—that cognition happened in a realm divorced from the physical world.1 Spinoza, on the other hand, held that since the brain is a physical organ, its thoughts must be based in the physical world.

Damasio’s many years of laboratory research and clinical observations reveal that “Nature appears to have built the apparatus of rationality not just on top of the apparatus of biological regulation, but also from it and with it.”2

Biological regulation refers to activity in older (in terms of evolution) brain areas, such as the brain stem and the limbic system. The brain stem is involved with basic physiology, such as breathing, and the limbic system is the seat of our emotions. Damasio is saying that our ability to think rationally isn't a detached add-on built atop our biological functions; rather, the foundation of our ability to think rationally rests upon the brain’s regulation of our biological functions.

Damasio explains that only parts of the brain that can create maps3—organized representations of the world outside the brain4—are available to consciousness. He writes, “The entire fabric of a conscious mind is created from the same cloth—images generated by the brain’s mapmaking abilities.”5 However, the brain’s bioregulation regions do not generate maps, so we cannot be directly aware of their activity.

Since only parts of the brain that create maps are available to consciousness, this means that much of the brain is unavailable. So, how can these unavailable-to-consciousness brain areas participate in cognition?

This is where the body enters the picture. Areas of the brain not available to consciousness communicate what they rate as important by way of the body. They don’t send direct signals like the motor system does to move our muscles. Instead, they work in more subtle ways—through electrical signals travelling in the autonomic nervous system6 and chemical signals coursing in the bloodstream.

These signals, sent from the brain’s biological regulation regions, are what make your heart go pitter-patter or cause the hairs on your skin to stand on end. The conscious brain, using its map of the body, then feels7 these physical changes taking place and can adjust its thinking in response. In this way, subconscious parts of the brain play a role in cognition by sending signals to the body, signals that scientists can now detect and study.8

Damasio’s work shows that human thought—no matter how deep or abstract—cannot be separated from the physical world the brain inhabits: the body and its surroundings. There are two key reasons for this. First, cognition (conscious, rational thinking) is built on the brain’s maps, which consist of images of the real world outside the brain.9 Second, this thinking is shaped by signals felt in the body—feelings that inform the conscious mind what matters to the brain’s unavailable-to-consciousness parts.10

In what ways does this concept of embodiment connect to music? Why do we like or dislike certain musical styles or pieces? How is it that music triggers strong emotional reactions? These questions will be explored in Parts 2 and 3 of this series. Please stay tuned.

1. Descartes’ perspective is often termed substance dualism. He had a famous saying that summed it up: “I think therefore I am.” This quote became a zippy slogan that turned out to be brilliant advertising for Descartes’ point of view. So much so that his perspective held sway for several centuries until modern scientific observation could probe it sufficiently.

2 Damasio, A. Descartes’ Error. Penguin, 1994, p. 128.

3. Probably the best-known example of a brain map is the somatosensory homunculus—the brain real estate where an image of one’s body is found—first described by Wilder Penfield. This example is akin to a road map showing the organization of highways. But the concept of brain maps extends beyond representations based in geometric space. For example, the primary auditory cortex (the brain’s hearing center) organizes sounds in an orderly manner based upon their frequencies. Damasio’s point is that only information in brain areas that make maps is available to consciousness. Since most of the brain does not create such images, information in these brain areas is not available to consciousness.

(To learn more about brain maps, including Penfield’s somatosensory homunculus, visit https://www.brainfacts.org/~/media/brainfacts/article%20multimedia/educ….)

4. Curiously, the brain has no map of itself. This explains why much of what the brain does is hidden from its own awareness.

5. Damasio, A. Self Comes to Mind. Vintage, 2012, p. 199.

6. The autonomic nervous system operates automatically, transmitting signals related to biological regulation.

7. It notices these physical changes by feeling them, like when you sense a cut on your finger.

8. Damasio calls these signals “somatic markers.”

9. The brain can only make maps of the physical world. Thus, all thoughts and ideas, no matter how abstract they may be, have their basis in the physical world.

10. In other words, we need our body in order for our brain to be able to think properly.

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