Research at Champlain College is digging into how humans deal with empathy.
The study, which is being conducted at the college's Behavioral Neuroscience Lab, is examining if altering parts of the brain changes how a person judges a piece of music.
Barbara Colombo is a professor and program director of the psychology program at Champlain College and founder and director of the lab. As part of this research, she connected 40 young musicians to a machine called the Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation, or TDCS.
The hat-like machine sends low amounts of currents into targeted parts of the brain.
Participants listened to an unfamiliar musical piece and had to describe how creative they thought it was and the emotions they felt. They listened to a sad, slow-tempo song, but when part of their brain was blocked, participants recorded less emotion and less creativity.
"That we could actually change the activation and increase or decrease the activation of that part of the brain is promising because we could potentially use that to improve social relational skills of individuals on the spectrum," Colombo said.
The next step will be finding a Ph.D. student interested in this research and then begin looking for funding for a clinical trial, Colombo said.
This story is a collaboration between Vermont Public and the Community News Service. The Community News Service is a student-powered partnership between the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program and community newspapers across Vermont.
