Music and the Brain

Brain Awareness Week 2014 ~ University of Ottawa Behavioural Neurobiology Blog ~ a look into the effects of music on brain development, memory and processing.

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“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” – Plato

Who doesn’t love music and isn’t somehow emotionally, mentally or even physically affected by it?

That’s also why some people have been known to burst into tears after watching a classical orchestra. We came across an interesting post by Melanie Foster at Online PHD Programs on the 15 Studied Effects of Classical Music on Your Brain. Here’s an excerpt from her piece:

“Classical music, whether you love it or hate it, has been a powerful cultural force for centuries. While it no longer dominates the music scene, the argument for continued appreciation of the genre goes far beyond pure aural aesthetics. Classical music has been lauded for its ability to do everything from improve intelligence to reduce stress, and despite some exaggeration of its benefits, science shows us that it actually does have a marked effect on the brain in a number of positive ways.”

Our favorite effect is how emotional expression in music and speech affect the brain similarly. Music imitates the tonal characteristics of emotions relayed through voice, which taps into our innate communicative abilities. That’s why music can cause a stir in your senses through its different instruments, modes and melodies – and this applies to music of all genres and cultures around the world.

Get a taste of Melanie’s article through the infographic above, and find out what the 15 effects of classical music to the brain are by reading all about it here.

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Music Therapy May Help Children with Autism

By Marcela De Vivo, mother of a child with a severe disability and freelance writer who works with Oltarsh law firms.  She writes on immigration law, health and special education law and inclusion....

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Under the expert guidance of accredited music therapist Courtney Radbourne, the music therapy program at the Maplesoft Centre has been a popular draw for cancer survivors and caretakers alike.

Like most health-related therapies, music therapy is about healing. Using music and musical elements, the program helps participants re-connect with themselves and address the various challenges associated with cancer through music. The therapy does not require any musical training and it’s geared to all ages and abilities.

The profession of music therapy was developed in North America during the World Wars. Music was used in Veteran Hospitals to address the injuries and traumas that soldiers suffered during battle. During this time, many health care professionals witnessed the positive effects that music had on veterans’ psychological, physiological, cognitive, and emotional state. Since then, many colleges and universities worldwide have developed music therapy programs to properly train musicians how to use music for therapeutic purposes.  Canada’s Canadian Association for Music Therapy was created in 1977 and promotes excellence in music therapy practice, education, research and development.

Some of the benefits of music therapy include improved awareness, concentration, recall and memory. Music therapy also addresses anxiety, reduces stress, creates opportunities for learning and can even help some individuals to communicate and express themselves better, both verbally and non-verbally.

 Courtney uses many techniques in the workshops, including song writing, lyric discussion, music listening, relaxation, improvisation and music making.

Recently, one of the exciting offerings was how to compose a song from scratch. Local singer songwriters Ana Miura and Amanda Rheaume, founders of the National Benefit Concert “Babes for Breasts”,  graciously donated their talents and resources to help participants record a song in a professional studio.  The song “I Am Here” is available on the Babes for Breasts compilation CD available through their website.

For information about when the program is offered at the Maplesoft Centre and how to register, visit the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation’s Maplesoft Centre website.

For further information about music therapy please visit the Canadian Association for Music Therapy website.

Information about Accredited Music Therapist, Courtney Radbourne, BMT, MTA can be located by visiting her website.                                   

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oliver sacks - Musicophilia - Music Therapy and Parkinson's

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The effects of music on the brain

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Literature Review Continued

Music-based memory enhancement in Alzheimer’s Disease: promise and limitations

This study reviewed the work of Simmon-Stern, Budson and Ally in a 2010 study, which found significance in how patients with Alzheimer’s disease recognized lyrics when the lyrics were sung in comparison to simply visually presented or spoken. By presenting lyrics to Alzheimer’s patients that are also relevant to the everyday life of an older adult, researchers also found enhanced lyric recognition. Both patients with Alzheimer’s disease and a normal control group were used as participants in this study.

            Overall the participants scored higher on a memory test that measured general lyric content that was sung rather than spoken. However, when participants were asked about specific lyrical content they performed equally well on the spoken and sung tests. From these findings they interpreted that memory recognition performs as a dual processing model. They concluded that general content is familiar to the participant and the familiarity can be enhanced with music. However, in order to encode specific content a separate recollection-based system is needed and is not aided by music.

Multidimensional scaling of emotional responses to music in patients with temporal lobe resection

This study investigates emotional responses to music. The study observed participants who have suffered right or left temporal lobe lesions as well as a group of normal control participants. Nine musical excerpts that expressed changes of emotional expression (chord changes, mode changes, etc) were used. Participants were required to evaluate emotional dissimilarities between pairs of excerpts. The participants rated the emotional dissimilarities of the pairs of excerpts on an 8-point scale. The results found no significant difference between both groups in their evaluation of emotions in the excerpts. The conclusion was that the ability to distinguish emotions in music was not impaired by right or left temporal lesions.

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Oliver Sacks - Musicophilia - Alzheimer's/The Power of Music

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Oliver Sacks - Musicophilia - Strokes, Language, and Music

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Literature Review- Article: Development and Preliminary Evaluation of a Music-based Attention Assessment for Patients with Traumatic Brain Injury

This study aimed to field test a researcher-developed Music-based Attention Assessment (MAA), a melodic contour identification test designed to assess three different types of attention for patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Traumatic brain injury is defined as damage to brain tissue caused by an external mechanical force, as evidenced by loss of consciousness, post-traumatic amnesia, or by findings from a physical or mental status examination. Musical components, such as rhythm and melody, can activate the attentional system. Attention rehabilitation for patients with TBI is essential for patients’ obtaining maximum benefit of therapeutic interventions and empowering them to return to activities of daily life.

  The results showed that test items in each of the 3 subtests were found to have an easy to moderate level of item difficulty and an acceptable to high level of item discrimination, and the musical characteristics (ie. contour, congruence, and pitch inference) were found to be associated with the level of item difficulty. Although MAA has the potential to provide diagnostic information in regards to auditory attention ability of patients with TBI, this study was a pilot study with a small sample size, so the researchers cannot recommend that it be used at this time to measure attention ability of patients with TBI. 

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Literature Review- Article: Impaired recognition of scary music following unilateral temporal lobe excision

This study compared the recognition of music composed with the intention to be scary. The amygdala plays a role in recognizing fear in both non-musical and musical contexts. Patients with both left and right amygdala resection and medial temporal resection for relief of medically intractable seizures were paired with healthy controls who are similar to them in age, and musical background. The musical selections were purposely created to induce fear, peacefulness, happiness and sadness. Participants were asked to rate to what extent each musical passage expressed these 4 emotions on 10-point scales. In order to check for the presence of a perceptual problem, the same musical selections were presented to the participants in an error detection task.

  The amygdala has been identified as one of the most important structures of the limbic system that is implicated in fear perception. Bilateral amygdala damage impairs the recognition of unpleasant emotions, especially fear, in facial expressions.

  The results showed that the impairment is relatively selective because recognition of happiness was normal, and recognition of peacefulness and sadness in music was less clearly affected by the medial temporal lobe resection. Both LTR and RTR patients were found to be impaired in the recognition of scary music. This suggests that the anteromedial temporal lobe (including the amygdala) plays a role in the recognition of danger in a musical context.

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The Healing Power of Music

An unconventional approach to recovery and coping, music therapy is a field of medicine capturing new attention due to its role in helping Gabrielle Giffords...

A journalistic introduction to music therapy and success stories that are touching. Shows the impact that music therapy has in people’s lives ranging from children with autism, seniors with alzheimer’s or dementia, stroke patients, depression or anxiety patients, cancer patients, and people with brain injuries related to their motor functions or speech sounds.

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Interesting information about music and music therapy

★    Music can be defined as organized sounds and pauses over time

★    In order to process musical sounds that come from different locations and consist of various psychoacoustic properties, individuals are likely to organize sounds into perceptually meaningful units and to from the units into sound streams over time

★    Day old infants can detect differences in rhythmic patterns (lullabies eg.)

★    Music precedes languages even though it is not essential to survival

★    Most music input goes to the brain for processing. But some of it heads straight to motor nerves in our spinal cord. Those help us to move to the rhythm of music without trying. Music therapists use this phenomenon to teach stroke patients how to develop strength in their upper body.

★    Our physiologic responses to music (increase/decrease heart rate, shiver down spine, breathing quickens) is something music therapists use to help stimulate a person in a coma or use music to effectively to help someone relax

★    Listening to or singing music with lyrics uses shared neural circuits as listening to and expressing speech. Therapist use this to help children learn to communicate, or with stroke patients relearning to talk

★    Music is an effective mnemonic device (eg. learning ABCs)

★    Music is 2nd only to smell for its ability to stimulate our memory

  Source: “Top 12 brain-based reasons why music therapy works”

blog.positscience.com

  ★    According to the gate control theory of pain, music helps reduce our attention to pain by 50% (Dr. Lorrie Kubicek, certified music therapist at Massachusetts General hospital’s HOPES program)

★    Music therapy can help brain injury in the following areas:

1) Language & speech

2) Memory/cognitive issues: can help with sequencing & concentration . Clients often struggle with being easily distracted, but are able to focus on a song for 2-3 minutes.

3) Physical issues: Dancing as mentioned before

★     Music Thanatology is sometimes used at the end of a patient’s life to ease the person’s passing. It is practiced in homes, hospices, or nursing homes

★    Studies have showed that music therapy with anti-nausea drugs for patients doing chemotherapy, can help ease nausea & vomiting

★    Some studies have shown that music therapy can benefit short term pain including cancer pain

★    ”Mozart Effect”: Listening to Mozart fr 10-20 minutes helps (temporarily) people’s brain activity & intelligence/creativity. This hasn’t been fully proven & the reasons remain unknown. (American Cancer Society)

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Institute for music and neurological functioning

Music Therapy for Speech Rehabilitation

http://musictherapy.imnf.org/services/category/speech-rehabilitation

Institute for Music and Neurologic Function (IMNF) music therapists work with individuals on an outpatient basis throughCenterLight Health System as well as through our private practice, the IMNF Music Therapy Professionals Practice. We help people recover their ability to speak and communicate with others. For example, individuals with speech difficulties can work with a music therapist to help them regain their ability to communicate by singing words and phrases, as opposed to simply speaking them. Rhythmic activities, like drumming to a beat, can also aid in speech production. The use of music encourages individuals to participate in their therapy session through enjoyable and creative music activities that accelerate the rehabilitation process. People who have not been able to talk for five years or more may be able to learn to sing, communicate and talk to others through successful music therapy.

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Canadian Association for Music Therapy: Changing lives through music therapy

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http://www.healthyfellow.com/448/music-therapy/

Music Therapy and Stroke Recovery - A German study published in the July 2009 edition of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences examined the effects of “music-supported therapy” in a group of 32 stroke patients. 15 music therapy sessions were provided over a 3 week period along with standard care. The patients involved all suffered from moderate impairment of motor function and had not previously received music treatment. 30 other patients received a similar therapeutic program minus the music and were used as a comparison group. The stroke patients who received the standard care + music intervention demonstrated statistically greater improvements in “fine as well as gross motor skills” involving precision, smoothness and speed of movement. While the control group reported virtually no improvement, the music group further illustrated “electrophysiological changes indicative of better cortical connectivity and improved activation of the motor cortex”. The music, in conjunction with rehabilitation therapy, was literally allowing the brain to reorganize and compensate for the damage caused by the stroke. (9)

There’s still a lot to learn about how exactly to best utilize music in the healing arts. A recent Chinese study set out to prove that happy melodies would reduce pain more efficiently than sad music. The only problem is that the results of the trial didn’t support the original hypothesis! What the researchers determined instead is that the valence or perceived attractiveness of the music was the determining factor in pain relieving potential. This could conceivably open the door for doctors and psychiatrists to prescribe music much like they would medications – based on an individual’s personal needs and preferences. (10)

I’m certain that there’s going to be a multitude of new research on music therapy in the years to come. But what’s equally important to consider is how music is perceived by those who are being exposed to it. One of the finest things about music therapy is that it is generally welcomed by those who need it most. A recent report in the journalComplementary Therapies in Medicine asked “17 wheelchair bound elderly residents” about their impression of group music therapy. The men and women collectively stated that music provided them with added strength and enhanced their quality of life. They went on to remark that the inclusion of music inspired them to exercise and learn more and, perhaps as importantly, added variety and greater satisfaction to their lives. These are the type of statements that are rarely uttered with regard to conventional medical care. My hope is that the modern medical paradigm will soon incorporate more music into its institutes of healing. When they do, I believe that more actual healing of the body and mind will occur. (11)

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At MUSIC & MEMORY℠, we help elders suffering from Alzheimer's and other challenges find renewed meaning and connection in their lives through personalized music.

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Alzheimer's Disease: Music Brings Patients 'Back to Life'

Henry Dryer sits slumped over the tray attached to his wheelchair. He doesn't speak, and rarely moves, until a nursing home worker puts his headphones on.

Then Dryer's feet start to shuffle, his folded arms rock back and forth, and he sings out loud in perfect sync with his favorite songs.

"I feel a band of love, dreams," said Dryer, 92, who has dementia. "It gives me the feeling of love, romance!"

Henry is one of seven patients profiled in the documentary "Alive Inside," a heartwarming look at the power of music to help those in nursing homes.

"There are a million and a half people in nursing homes in this country," director Michael Rossato-Bennett told ABC News. "When I saw what happened to Henry, whenever you see a human being awaken like that, it touches something deep inside you."

Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia, affecting 5.4 million Americans. The disease swiftly robs patients of their memories and other brain functions, forcing most to live out their final years in nursing homes.

Rossato-Bennett said he took on the documentary project to promote Music & Memory, a nonprofit organization that brings iPods with personalized music to dementia patients in nursing home care.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/AlzheimersCommunity/alzheimers-disease-music-brings-patients-back-life/story?id=16117602