IS BEETHOVEN REALLY BETTER IN BED THAN YOUR LOVER?

Is Beethoven really sexier in bed than your lover...? Before dismissing the question as absurd or offensive, first check with the neuroscientists at McGill University. In their discipline's relentless search for what chemicals help make us who and what we are, they studied the brain responses of their volunteers' favorite instrumental music.

Scans monitored the brains while playing everything from rock to bagpipes, from punk to Beethoven. They revealed that during particularly thrilling moments of the music, the striatum region of the brain releases that ever-popular, much-beloved neurochemical dopamine. The very same marquee-flashing chemical that gives rise to the pleasure we get from eating, drinking, drugs and sex.

No denying the satisfaction these scientists got from this discovery. No denying such neuroscientific discoveries help us map the brain. But there are those who will deny the brain is the mind, and the mind is the brain. Which seems to place them in science's own favorite role: skeptic.

This skepticism is found among philosophers, theologians, poets, mystics, clergy, not to mention passionate lovers who don't often think of their mate as a galaxy of churning dopamine.

However, Harvard neurologist Gottfried Schlaug was so impressed with the McGill study, he said toe USA Today: "This really nails it!"

The thought here is, nails what...? That what we are, is to be found in our brain? That whatever energizes our brain is chemical in nature? That we can be best understood in terms of our measurable brain activities?

With apologies, these are not new questions on this blogsite. They have mostly been answered by those who explain, "Science is not the enemy, simply the source of new and useful physiologic information." Which is perfectly correct! Science deals with physiology like the brain. It requires other disciplines to deal with the non-physical like: the mind. the spirit. the psyche. the soul.

The hope is always this. In face of the ultimate question "Who Am I?," the search for an answer will rise to higher heights than the brain, the lobes, the chemicals, the DNA. After all, we share each of these with all the rest of the evolved planet. But what the planet does not share with us are the unique human achievements we still stand in awe of: A Venus, a David, a Dante, a Shakespeare, a Newton, a Monet, a Gaudi, a Mother Teresa.

And to be sure, a Beethoven. Both in and out of bed.