Music=Brainpower
 

Our brains are wired for music, and music changes our brains
by Robert Lee Hotz
Los Angeles Times


LOS ANGELES - The music that makes the foot tap, the fingers snap and the pulse quicken stirs the brain at its most fundamental levels, suggesting that scientists one day may be able to retune damaged minds by exploiting rhythm, harmony and melody, according to new research presented yesterday.

Exploring the neurobiology of music, researchers discovered direct evidence that music stimulates specific regions of the brain responsible for memory, motor control, timing and language. For the first time, researchers also have located specific areas of mental activity linked to emotional responses to music.

In the long run, music could become a way of retooling brains afflicted with a variety of emotional disorders or neurological diseases, the researchers said.

"That's our goal," said neuroscientist Anne Blood, who conducted the study at McGill University in Montreal. "You can activate different parts of the brain, depending on what music you listen to. So music can stimulate parts of the brain that are underactive in these disorders. Over time, we could retrain the brain in these disorders."

The findings, presented at a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Los Angeles, underscore how music - as an almost universal language of mood and emotion - orchestrates a wide variety of neural systems to cast its evocative spell.

"Undeniably, there is a biology of music," said Harvard University Medical School neurobiologist Mark Jude Tramo. "There is no question that there is specialization within the human brain for the processing of music. Music is biologically part of human life, just as music is aesthetically part of human life."

Brain and music: new research

In a series of new studies made public yesterday, researchers found:

-- The brain responds directly to harmony. Using a medical PET scanner to monitor changes in neural activity, neuroscientists at McGill discovered that different parts of the brain involved in emotion are activated depending on whether the music is pleasant or dissonant. "This suggests different emotions are represented in different parts of the brain," Blood said.

-- The brain interprets written musical notes and scores in a special area on the brain's right side. That region corresponds to an area on the opposite side known to handle written words and letters. So, in studying the brains of expert musicians, researchers uncovered an anatomical link between music and language. "We are guessing (the area) is involved in the visual processing of the score itself," said Lawrence Parsons at the University of Texas at San Antonio. "On the left, the same area is involved in reading."

-- The brain grows in response to musical training the way a muscle responds to exercise. In a study of classically trained musicians, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston discovered that male musicians have significantly larger brains than men who have not had extensive musical training. The area of the brain called the cerebellum, which contains 70 percent of the brain's neurons, was about 5 percent larger in expert male musicians. No such size increase was found in the brains of female musicians, but the researchers said they may not have studied enough women to be certain.

"Musicians are not just born with these differences," said Dr. Gottfried Schlaug, who conducted the research. The cerebellum grows as a result of the constant practice needed to play an instrument, he said.

Overall, music seems to involve the brain at almost every level.

The researchers found evidence of music's remarkable power to affect neural activity no matter where they looked in the brain, from primitive regions found in all animals to more recently evolved regions thought to be distinctively human.

"We find that harmony, melody and rhythm had distinct patterns of brain activity. They involved both the right and left sides of the brain," Parsons said.

Melody affects both sides of the brain equally, though harmony and rhythm seem to activate the left side of the brain more strongly.

Our first form of communication?

The neural mechanisms of music may have originally developed as a way of communicating emotion as a precursor to speech, the researchers suggested, offering insights into how the mind integrates sensory information with emotion and meaning.

Already, researchers are looking for ways to harness the power of music to change the brain.

Preliminary research in laboratory animals and humans suggests that music may play some role in enhancing intelligence. Indeed, so seductive is that possibility that politicians in Florida, Georgia and other states are lobbying for schoolchildren to be exposed to Mozart sonatas, even though such preliminary research has yet to be replicated or confirmed.

Yesterday, scientists said the new research could help the clinical practice of neurology, including cognitive rehabilitation. As a therapeutic tool, for example, some doctors today already use music to help rehabilitate stroke patients. Surprisingly, some stroke patients who have lost their ability to speak retain their ability to sing, and that opens an avenue for retraining the brain's speech centers.

That's neat...

I wonder if the benefits are limited to those who make music, or if even just listening has an effect.

I don't think anyone is surprised that making music helps you learn. From reading, to cognative ability, to timing and reflexes, breath control, the brain gets a good workout.

- Ill

Not to mention the focus and the discipline.

But what about other musicians and other forms of music. The study in Boston referenced only classical music primarily.

Well, I definitely agree with this. I don't make the music, but I listen quite a bit. In fact, most times, anything I'm doing, surfing the net, work, when i was a kid, homework, I had music playing in the back ground.

Also, the drummer from the Grateful Dead, Mickey Hart, he's stood by the fact that music can help people who suffer from brain damage to "heal" even alzihemer patients. He specifically sites drumming, which does have the power to focus your attention.

Great stuff! thanks for the article!

Damn...I wonder what Black Sabbath does to my head...sheesh!

Interesting article..

Good point! In my case, even though I don't make music its a great part of my life.. I listen to various types of music depending on my mood. The line between certain type of music and the mood never changes, though..

I listen to techno when I need energy (esp. Prodigy :evilway: ). I listen to romantic, slow music when I need to cry.. etc.

I don't think that music has an effect on the brain just to the person making the music.. It does on listener, too..

I see music as a form of medium for communication between the artis and the listener..

Just my opinion :)

I saw an interview that Mickey Hart did about drumming on CBS Sunday Morning and he did mention the healing benefits of drumming. one of the things he did was to show one of the drums he acquired that had a sound like a heartbeat.

i don't "make" music either, but i know for a fact that i have been healed by music countless times....its my savior pure and simple :)

and depending on my mood i listen to all different types of music from techno to classical

without music i dunno what i would do

Music can move the soul. It can be a very strong influence. Some music can calm us down, some music can make us wild! How does music affect us?


Music is used in a variety of ways. It is used in the medical field as a source of research and as a sort of therapy as well. Music has been used as therapy for seizures, to lower blood pressure, treat ADD children, treat mental illness, treat depression, aid in healing, treat stress and insomnia and premature infants.


Musicologist Julius Portnoy found that music can change metabolic rates, increase or decrease blood pressure, effect energy levels, and digestion, positively or negatively, depending on the type of music. Calming music, such as classical music was found to have a very calming effect on the body, and cause the increase of endorphins, thirty minutes of such music was equal to the effect of a dose of valium. Both hemispheres of the brain are involved in processing music. The music in these studies is not the "lyrics", but the music itself, the melody, the tones, the tunes, the rhythm, the chords.


Conversely music has also been documented to cause sickness. The right, or wrong music, rather, can be like a poison to the body. Studies have been done on plants where loud hard rock music, for instance, killed plants and soft classical music, make the plants grow faster. Music is very powerful, like a drug and can even be an addiction. In the case of Patty Hearst, it was documented that music was used in the aid of brainwashing her. In the book, Elevator Music, by Joseph Lanza, it states that certain types of music over prolonged periods in certain conditions, were shown to cause seizures.


In the book, The Secret Power of Music, by David Tame, it says, "music is more than a language, it is the language of languages. It can be said that of all the arts, there is none other that more powerfully moves and changes the consciousness.


It can be said that music is a very powerful and awesome tool, that can have positive effects, virtually life saving mentally and physically when used in the right context, but has equally destructive and detrimental potential if used negatively.




here is another link about music and the brain...http://www.epub.org.br/cm/n15/mente/musica.html

I already knew that :) Hehehe..i'm what most would call a classical musician. I play the clarinet. It is said to help with grades and such. I am an A average student..must have done something right :)