Sex and Jazz: The Improvisational Brain

Improvisation is central to jazz. Every performance is unique, a musical flight of the creative moment. How does the brain accomplish such an intricate and instantaneous crystallization of near-chaotic sublime balance?

Spontaneous improvisation was in each case associated with a highly congruous pattern of activations and deactivations in prefrontal cortex, sensorimotor and limbic regions of the brain. In addition, the majority of these regions showed functionally reciprocal patterns of activity. That is, activations during improvisation were matched by deactivations during the control tasks, and vice versa, when each condition was compared to the resting baseline.

...The changes in the prefrontal cortex consisted of a deactivation in the lateral parts and activation in the medial parts of the prefrontal cortex. The medial part is thought to play a role in the complex phenomenon of the self, internally motivated self generated content and as such this activation can be explained by the fact that improvisation is also a way of expressing one’s own musical voice or story. The deactivation of the lateral part is explained by the occurrence of free floating attention, permitting spontaneous expressions without interference of self-monitoring. _Dr.Shock

Compare what happens in the frontal cortex of a jazz improvisationalist with what happens in the frontal cortex of a female brain in orgasm -- a "sexual improvisationalist".

But when a woman reached orgasm, something unexpected happened: much of her brain went silent. Some of the most muted neurons sat in the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex, which may govern self-control over basic desires such as sex. Decreased activity there, the researchers suggest, might correspond to a release of tension and inhibition. The scientists also saw a dip in excitation in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, which has an apparent role in moral reasoning and social judgment—a change that may be tied to a suspension of judgment and reflection. _SciAm

Areas of the pre-frontal lobes that govern judgment, self-control, and self-vigilance tend to be shut down in both improvising jazz musicians and in orgasming women. Other areas of the brain having to do with body sensations experience amplified activity during both jazz and sex.

You may ask, "so what?" Well, consider this: what if the proper test of human level consciousness has more to do with the ability to orgasm or to "feel jazz" than it does with playing chess or algorithms?

The human brain and the human body work together. Separate them, and neither one can function well. The mind is embodied within the brain, but in a sense the brain is co-embodied along with the physical organism. The idea that one can create a human equivalent mind without taking into account how the brain and body improvise our reality, moment by moment, is irrational.