Music Through the Lens of Neuroscience and Psychology
I have chosen the focus of this writing assignment to be apart from my video project about the Mars mission. I play many instruments of music, in a lot different genres, and my love of listening to music is even more diverse and extensive. I use music as a therapy, a creative output, a stimulant, a pastime, and an aide to any social situation. I have always been fascinated about the science behind humanity’s affection for this art of sound, and what neurological and psychological research has uncovered about one of the oldest and most prolific forms of culture.
In one study, 16 participants listened to 5 characteristically happy songs, 5 sad songs, and 10 neutral songs, all in the genre of classical music, while inside of an fMRI machine. Blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal contrasts were used to indicate which parts of the brain were most active under the influence of the music. With happy music, the ventral and dorsal striatum, anterior cingulate, parahippocampal gyrus, and auditory association areas received BOLD signal contrasts, commonly areas of the brain associated with reward, movement, and emotional processing. The hippocampus/amygdala region received a BOLD signal contrast with sad music, commonly associated with memory and emotions. The study showed the neurological response of different areas of the human brain to music of different moods (Mitterschiffthaler et al., 2007).
Another study used an fMRI machine to compare the neurological differences in language and music. A 29-year-old bilingual pianist, literate in both Japanese and English, underwent a series of fMRI tests while reading Japanese, English, and a musical score. Figure 1 shows images of the fMRI results of the three categories, showing the similarities between processing written music and written language. However, there are differences, such as in the right transverse occipital sulcus, which can be accounted by written music’s representation of rhythm and pitch. These aspects require more cortical processing (Nakada et al., 1998).
Figure 1: fMRI images of the regions of the participant’s brain (shown in red and yellow) that responded most to reading the three categories of language: Japanese, English, and music.
Aside from these fascinating insights of music’s effects on the physical brain, psychological research has also demonstrated music’s strange influence. A study on 60 college students, 30 biology majors and 30 music majors, tried to determine whether musical education influenced biological responses to two types of music. Plasma levels of cortisol and norepinephrine were measured before and after listening to both musical pieces, and galvanic skin responses were measured as well. The study concluded that cortisol levels and galvanic skin responses were significantly higher after listening for music majors than for biology majors, and that cortisol increase is a good indicator of analytical and critical listening to music (VanderArk & Ely, 1993).
A case study of two patients suffering from frontotemporal dementia (FTD) investigated a sudden development of taste in pop music. A 68-year-old lawyer, whose musical preference had always been classical, and who regarded pop music as “mere noise,” began listening to Italian pop music two years after being diagnosed with FTD. After three years, he began listening for hours every day, until his death four years after the diagnosis. A 73-year-old housewife originally could not tolerate listening to music, and only did so for occasional dance songs, until she developed a great affinity for Italian pop music one year after her diagnosis of FTD. This study builds on past research of dementia patients developing greater preferences and abilities in art and music (Geroldi et al., 2000).
79 participants with an ICD-10 diagnosis of depression were randomized to receive individual therapy, in the form of standard care with music therapy or standard care alone, for 20 weeks. Figure 2 displays the results of the study, showing that participants who received the standard care with music therapy had far better improvements in psychiatric scores than those who only received psychiatric care (Erkkila, 2011).
Figure 2: The results of five psychiatric tests, with change in scores on the y-axis and time in months on the x-axis. (a) Montgomery–Åsberg Depression Rating Scale; (b) Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale – Anxiety; (c) Global Assessment of Functioning; (d) Toronto Alexithymia Scale – 20; (e) Health-related quality of life scale RAND–36.
Works Cited
Erkkila, Kaakko, Marko Punkanen, Jorg Fachner, et al. “Individual music therapy for depression: randomised controlled trial.” The British Journal of Psychiatry. 199, no. 2 (July, 2011) [Cited 20 November 2016].
Geroldi, Cristina, Tizina Metitieri, Giuliano Binetti, et al. “Pop Music and Frontotemporal Dementia.” Neurology. 55, no. 12 (December, 2000) [Cited 20 November 2016].
Mitterschiffthaler, Martina T., Cynthia H.Y. Fu, Jeffrey A. Dalton, et al. “A functional MRI study of happy and sad affective states induced by classical music.” Human Brain Mapping. 128, no. 11 (November, 2007) [Cited 20 November 2016].
Nakada, Tsutomu, Yukihiko Fujii, Kiyotaka Suzuki, et al.“‘Musical brain’ revealed by high-field (3 Tesla) functional MRI.” Cognitive Neuroscience. 9, no. 17 (December, 1998) [Cited 20 November 2016].
VanderArk, Sherman D., Daniel Ely. “Cortisol, biochemical, and galvanic skin responses to music stimuli of different preference values by college students in biology and music.” SAGE Journals. 77, no. 1 (August, 1993) [Cited 20 November 2016].
