Thursday, November 12, 2015
Brain and music
Music therapy has been practiced for decades as a way to treat neurological conditions from Parkinson's to Alzheimer's to anxiety and depression. Music can trigger the release of mood altering brain chemicals and once lost memory and emotion.. People who listened to music had less anxiety and lower cortisol than people who took prescription drugs. The superior temporal gyrus alone doesn't predict whether a person likes a given peace of mind, but it's involved in storing templates for what you've heard before. For instance a person who has heard a lot of jazz before is more likely to appreciate a given piece of jazz music than someone with a lot less experience.
Brain regions involved in movement, attention, planning and memory consistently showed activation when participants listened to music. One good example listening to Mozart
increases the intelligence quotient of those that appreciate his music. Music addresses some of the behaviors and skills that are necessary for academic success. The level of precision in processing music is much higher than the level of precision used in processing speech. That means that developing our brains musical networks may very well enhance our ability to process speech. Brain plasticity results from experiences which engage the brain through emotion, are repetitive and which require full attention. Another interesting fact about how music engages in the area of the brain is that is involved with paying attention, making predictions and updating the event in memory.
So music may not be the shortcut to producing brainiacs or mini Einsteins, but it does have powerful effects on our minds and bodies.
https://blog.bufferapp.com/music-and-the-brain
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/273060.php?sr
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This is very interesting to read about in an applied sense. Many people listen to music to regulate their mood without even knowing it. It would be interesting to study how listening to sad music can negatively effect the valence of a person's mood during a period or experience that is highly associated with a negative mood, such as a break up. In addition, I wonder if there is a significant neurological difference in mood regulation in producing music versus just listening to it. It would also be interesting to see if there is a correlation between babies that grow up in a musical environment and language production. Overall, this is a very interesting study that has many valuable therapeutic applications.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting concept. It is extremely fascinating how music can aid in concentration, regulate moods, and even help with memory. The Mozart Effect is a great example, in illustrating how music can help improve one’s spatial reasoning. Another point that I found extremely intriguing and surprising was that “the level of precision in processing music is much higher than the level of precision used in processing speech.” Hopefully with research like this people will become more comfortable with trying alternative forms of therapy such as musical therapy, because of the known benefits, of music.
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