New Multi-faculty Research Initiative Weaves Notes and Neurons

Opera is perhaps the most cognitively challenging art form, requiring an intensity of focus, endurance, and theatricality unmatched by any other discipline. The complexity of operatic performance requires cognitive flexibility beyond what is necessary for the average human brain. But what is it about opera that makes a brain different? Is it innate? Or is something transformative happening over years of training? 

With considerable investment from the Peter Wall Institute, the Wall Opera Project is the first study of its kind in North America, and will integrate leading researchers in opera, neuroscience, language sciences and linguistics, education, medicine, kinesiology, and the humanities to assess not just brain changes, but their potential applications in education, rehabilitation, and preventative health.