'If I Only Had a Brain': MRI technology gives an amazing inside look into a singing brain

Researchers from the Beckman Institute investigated how various muscles and other connected body parts work to allow us to speak and sing, and the changes that happen over time. Analyzing how the human voice works and the variations it undergoes at age, a former singer, now professor is determined to explore changes further. Using an MRI technique, the group of scientists were able to actually see the vocal movement, and share it with rest of the world.

span style="line-height: 15.8599996566772px;">MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - "The fact that we can produce all sorts of sounds and we can sing is just amazing to me. Sounds are produced by the vibrations of just two little pieces of tissue. That's why I've devoted my whole life to studying it: I think it's just incredible," said Aaron Johnson, affiliate faculty at the Beckman Institute and an assistant professor in speech and hearing science at the University of Illinois.

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Johnson spent 10 years as a professional singer in Chicago choirs, according to the Beckman Institute website. For the study, he sung "If I Only Had a Brain" from the "Wizard of Oz," viewing the muscles moving through a high-speed Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

"Typically, MRI is able to acquire maybe 10 frames per second or so, but we are able to scan 100 frames per second, without sacrificing the quality of the images," said the technical director of the institute and associate professor in bioengineering at Illinois, Brad Sutton.

The MRI technique, published at the Magnetic Resonance in Medicine journal, was developed by the engineering Professor Zhi-Pei Liang's team from the Beckman Institute. Using this MRI technology, the researchers were able to view the movements in real time, which is needed in order to determine how the "neuromuscular system and larynx change and atrophy as we age" according to Johnson.

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