Selected from thousands, Sharma’s manuscript on music is chosen winner in Engineering and Applied Sciences Category; hair cells of inner ear appear key
When Pradeep Sharma, PhD, Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished University Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Interim Dean of the Cullen College of Engineering, at the University of Houston, won the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 2023 Cozzarelli Prize, it was music to his ears on different octaves. First, his paper is the only winner in the Engineering and Applied Sciences category chosen from more than 3,000 research articles that appeared last year in PNAS. Another key for Sharma’s concerto of cheer is because the paper examines the complex phenomenon of musical perception and begins to answer the incredibly complex question, ‘Why do some people hear music better than others?’
Since 2005, the annual Cozzarelli Prize acknowledges papers that reflect scientific excellence and originality, recognizing outstanding contributions to the scientific disciplines represented by the National Academy of Sciences. The editorial board of PNAS selects the winners that represent the six broadly defined classes under which the National Academy of Sciences is organized: Physical and Mathematical Sciences; Biological Sciences; Engineering and Applied Sciences; Biomedical Sciences; Behavioral and Social Sciences; and Applied Biological, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.
There is no trouble in seeing the full expression of originality in Sharma’s article, “A Minimal Physics-Based Model for Musical Perception,” in which he examines why some people, entirely untrained in music, can listen to a song and replicate it on a piano with unnerving accuracy. What enables some to “hear” music so much better than others? The open-access article was published on January 24, 2023 in PNAS.
“Variation in the physical properties of the auditory system, such as the hair cells of the internal ear, may partially account for differences in people’s ability to perceive musical tones,” reports Sharma in the article. Sharma and team developed a physics-based model of the mechanics of the hair cells of the inner ear to understand how it perceives multiple tones and its ability to clearly distinguish between two pitches.
“The physics-based model explains how the geometry and electromechanical properties of hair cells may influence musical perception. The model also explores the impact of factors external to the auditory system, including medications such as ibuprofen,” Sharma notes.
NSAID drugs are well-known to alter cell structure so they could cause a disruption in musical perception, although how major or minor is left to future research.
In their abstract, Sharma and colleagues say the following. “In this work, we investigate a physics-based model of the electromechanics of the hair cells in the inner ear to understand why a person might be physiologically better poised to distinguish musical sounds. A key feature of the model is that we avoid a “black-box” systems-type approach. All parameters are well-defined physical quantities, including membrane thickness, bending modulus, electromechanical properties, and geometrical features, among others. Using the two-tone interference problem as a proxy for musical perception, our model allows us to establish the basis for exploring the effect of external factors such as medicine or environment. As an example of the insights we obtain, we conclude that the reduction in bending modulus of the cell membranes (which for instance may be caused by the usage of a certain class of analgesic drugs) or an increase in the flexoelectricity of the hair cell membrane can interfere with the perception of two-tone excitation.”
Sharma’s team of researchers included Kosar Mozaffari, University of Houston; Fatemeh Ahmadpoor, New Jersey Institute of Technology; and Qian Deng, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China.