Greg Watry, College of Biological Sciences, contributed this piece.
Inspired by a love of music, professor explores brain processes that govern motivation and curiosity
An audio clip from the Apollo 11 launch plays amid static. 鈥淚gnition sequence start,鈥 a voice says. 鈥淪ix, five, four, three鈥︹ As the countdown continues, the feedback swells in the background, as if an amplifier鈥檚 volume knob is slowly being turned up. 鈥淎ll engines running,鈥 the voice says. 鈥淟iftoff.鈥
Then, the electric guitar hits. Distorted and heavy, the driving riff repeats and is joined by a twangy counterpart and pulsing drums. A cosmic surfer might listen to this song鈥斺淣eutron Star鈥 from the Lost Moon EP by the band Here Knows When鈥攚hile cruising the galaxy.
The tune鈥檚 source 鈥 澳门六合彩开奖结果走势图 Aggies.
鈥淚t鈥檚 mindboggling how many musicians there are in science,鈥 said Charan Ranganath, a guitarist and vocalist for Here Knows When and a professor at the Center for Neuroscience.
鈥淧eople who are into music like me will just go through phases where we鈥檒l devour music. Kind of like you鈥檇 do with papers in a field you鈥檙e really interested in.鈥
Here Knows When comprises a trio of 澳门六合彩开奖结果走势图 researchers and a 澳门六合彩开奖结果走势图 alum, including Jeff Sherman, Danielle Stolzenberg, Daniel Cordova and Ranganath. Formed roughly three years ago, the band throws elements of punk and indie rock into a blender to create a dreamy yet rugged sound.
Audio clip: "Neutron Star," by Here Knows When, a band made up of Aggie researchers and an alum.
Ranganath鈥檚 journeys in science and music unfolded on parallel and different tracks, but there are similarities to how he approaches the two. For Ranganath, a cognitive neuroscientist studying memory, both his research and his music are expressions of curiosity, a concept that鈥檚 also becoming a focus of his lab.
Origins of musical and scientific exploration
Ranganath started playing music in junior high school when he picked up the trumpet, but a personal connection didn鈥檛 form until high school, when metal and punk caught his attention. He picked up the guitar, and by the time he was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, he was jamming with relatives and friends, eventually forming a grunge band called Plug-in Drug. They鈥檇 play venues like 924 Gilman in Berkeley, where bands such as Primus and Green Day cut their teeth.
Initially an electrical engineering major at UC Berkeley, he switched paths and became hooked on psychology after taking a neuropsychology class, where he learned about how different brain disorders affect cognition.
鈥淚 think what really got me was working in labs and kind of the idea that science isn鈥檛 a bunch of stuff that you memorize,鈥 he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a process of problem-solving and trying things out, and people don鈥檛 necessarily tell you what to do. You sort of define the problem and how you solve it.鈥
Following graduation, Ranganath continued his education at Northwestern University, where he studied clinical psychology. Eventually his research focus shifted from studying electrical activity patterns in the brain linked to depression to electrical activity patterns linked to memory.
Like he did in Berkeley, Ranganath explored the local music scene in nearby Chicago. He started listening to bands like Sonic Youth, finding himself drawn to songs with unpredictable melodies.
鈥淭hey would put together all these alternate tunings that made everything sound like they weren鈥檛 normal chords,鈥 he said. 鈥淚t kind of empowered my own songwriting.鈥
![Ranganath and guitar](/sites/default/files/upload/users/charan-ranganath_guitar.jpg)
Ranganath brought that sensibility to his current band at the time, The Great Brain. While the band released an album, some vinyl tracks and a song on the soundtrack for the horror film 鈥淗enry II: Mask of Sanity,鈥 they broke up right around the time Ranganath wrapped up his doctoral program and clinical psychology training.
He found a postdoctoral position in neuroscientist Mark D鈥橢sposito鈥檚 laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, where he performed functional magnetic resonance imaging research. In a circuitous turn of events, the lab eventually moved to UC Berkeley and with it Ranganath.
Shortly afterward, he applied for a position at the 澳门六合彩开奖结果走势图 Center for Neuroscience.
A 澳门六合彩开奖结果走势图 band is born
Ranganath joined the 澳门六合彩开奖结果走势图 faculty in 2002. He played a key role in shaping cognitive neuroscience research at the university, and over time, music faded from his focus.
鈥淔or a long time after my band broke up in grad school, I was convinced I would never play in a band again,鈥 he said.
Then, someone from the past returned to Ranganath鈥檚 life.
Ranganath first met Professor Jeff Sherman, Department of Psychology, while attending Northwestern University, but unknowingly, their paths had crossed before. Years earlier, at UC Berkeley, one of Ranganath鈥檚 bands had opened for Sherman鈥檚 band, Cinderblock. In 2005, Sherman joined 澳门六合彩开奖结果走势图鈥 psychology faculty, and eventually, he and Ranganath started jamming. Assistant Professor Danielle Stolzenberg鈥攁nother member of the Department of Psychology with a fondness for music鈥攔ounded out the initial trio that became Here Knows When.
Science, music, expressing curiosity
While Ranganath tries to keep his neuroscience research separate from his music, the two sometimes bleed together.
鈥淥ne of the things that we鈥檝e been researching is this idea of curiosity and how does curiosity affect memory,鈥 said Ranganath.
Often in memory experiments, Ranganath will tell participants he wants them to learn a task or memorize something specific. While that might mimic how we learn under direction, it doesn鈥檛 account for natural curiosity. After all, Ranganath didn鈥檛 delve into punk music and psychology because someone told him to, he got into them because he was curious and felt motivated to learn more about them.
鈥淭hat motivational drive that I have to seek out that information, it鈥檚 actually鈥擨 mean, I don鈥檛 want to be over simplistic鈥攂ut it鈥檚 associated with this neurotransmitter dopamine, which people often talk about as the pleasure chemical,鈥 said Ranganath. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 not really about pleasure, it鈥檚 about energizing you to get rewards.鈥
From an evolutionary perspective, according to Ranganath, this type of motivation may have played a role in ancient human exploration. Today, Ranganath and colleagues study this neurobiological process in the lab.
鈥淲e found that when we asked people questions that triggered that curiosity, you get a little spike in activity in the brain areas the produce dopamine and you also get an enhancement of activity in the hippocampus, which is related to learning information you鈥檙e curious about,鈥 he said.
For Ranganath, this neural activity might be activated when he鈥檚 noodling on his electric guitar or designing a new experiment.
鈥淭hings just come out, and you go with it and you see where it takes you,鈥 said Ranganath. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about finding the knowledge gaps and finding the urge to keep moving forward.鈥