Why is this website called "MusicBIRD"?

Part of my doctoral dissertation at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro included compiling an online database of all peer-reviewed brain-imaging studies involving human musical processes. This project became known as the Musical Brain Imaging Research Database (MusicBIRD) and at the time of its public launch in 2007, there were 473 neuromusical studies that met the search criteria which I personally reviewed, summarized with an abstract, and then entered into the database. Currently, there are 533 studies up through 2010.

The MusicBIRD database project provides personally reviewed and written summaries of all peer-reviewed brain-imaging studies involving human musical processes through 2010. My work studying neuromusical research has provided profound insights into how humans learn to be musical and it is my hope that this database will be useful and insightful to others who are curious about music and the brain. As the number of braining imaging studies involving music continues to expand each year it becomes more of a logistical challenge to keep the database current. However, the MusicBIRD database may still offer useful insights into the development of neuromusical research and the conclusions of brain imaging studies through 2010 that still serve to illustrate the fundamental overview of this exciting field of research.

This chart represents the number of neuromusical studies in research databases since 1960.

Studies were identified by a keyword search for “brain” in PubMed, or “music” and “brain” in RILM.