Press release: This is your brain on jazz: Research use MRI to study spontaneity, creativity (open access)
Paper: Neural Substrates of Spontaneous Musical Performance: An fMRI Study of Jazz Improvisation (open access)
by Charles J. Limb, Allen R. Braun1. Publisher: Ernest Greene, University of Southern California, Feb 2008.
Creative Commons Public Domain.

A pair of Johns Hopkins and government scientists have discovered that when jazz musicians improvise, their brains turn off areas linked to self-censoring and inhibition, and turn on those that let self-expression flow. The joint research, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, and musician volunteers from the Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute, sheds light on the creative improvisation that artists and non-artists use in everyday life, the investigators say.