Alan Harvey

Your brain on music

TEDxPerth 2017
November 2017

Talk length:

17:17

Your brain on music | Alan Harvey | TEDxPerth

Neuroscientist and musician Alan Harvey takes us on an interactive journey showing live on stage what music does to our brain waves, and explains how music is more than just an entertainment. You've never seen music like this before… Alan is joined by fellow neuroscientist Andrew Price and musicians from Perth Symphony Orchestra led by Bourby Webster. Alan’s main experimental neuroscience interests are in trauma, transplantation, gene therapy and regeneration, his research primarily focused on understanding the growth of circuits in the visual system and spinal cord, and how best to protect and repair these circuits after injury. He is passionate about music, and over the past half-century he has performed in choirs, as a solo artist and in various folk and rock bands. In 2017, his book "Music, Evolution, and the Harmony of Souls" was published by Oxford University Press, bringing together his musical and neuroscientific interests, exploring music throughout human evolution and emphasising its importance for human welfare.

Alan Harvey
Neuroscientist

Alan Harvey was born in London. After education at Forest School and the University of Cambridge, he gained a PhD in neurophysiology from the Australian National University in Canberra. Following a period of research and teaching in the USA and South Australia, he moved to The University of Western Australia in 1984, where he is now an Emeritus Professor.

Alan’s main experimental neuroscience interests are in trauma, transplantation, gene therapy and regeneration, his research primarily focused on understanding the growth of circuits in the visual system and spinal cord, and how best to protect and repair these circuits after injury.

He is also passionate about music, and over the past 50 years or so he has sung in numerous choirs and played many concerts as a solo artist or as a member of various folk or rock bands. In 2017, his book Music, Evolution, and the Harmony of Souls was published by Oxford University Press, bringing together his musical and neuroscientific interests, exploring the importance of music throughout human evolution and emphasising its continued relevance to human welfare in the twenty-first century.