In I-was-going-to-write-about-this-months-ago news, The Scientist magazine profiled The Amygdaloids: Scientists Who Rock Out:
With a serious air about him, New York University neuroscientist Joe LeDoux takes hold of a microphone to introduce the first song, about "one of the great enigmas in the history of civilization" -- the mind-body problem.The Amygdaloids -- whose name is a play on the amygdala, an oval structure in the brain's temporal lobe involved in emotional behavior -- are a band comprised of LeDoux and NYU biologist Tyler Volk on guitar and vocals, NYU neural science postdoctoral student Daniela Schiller on drums, and Schiller's research assistant, Nina Galbraith Curley, on bass. Their "gimmick," says LeDoux, is that all of their original songs are about science.
"Mind Body Problem" is reminiscent of the Eagles and Bob Dylan -- easygoing classic rock that makes people in the audience tap their feet. "My body wants you so, but my mind just says no," LeDoux sings. At the end of the song, Volk, consistently the most energetic, throws his arms in the air, yelling to the audience in reference to the song's title: "Did that solve it for you!?"
Watch the band in videos at their web page, including a show a Madison Square Gardens complete with The Wave.
More seriously, check out the LeDoux Laboratory's research on emotions and memory. There's also a good NIH lecture video online.
