Written By Ananya Vinay
1. Introduction
Music has been an important part of human society for thousands of years. Every single culture throughout human history has partaken in music, making it a “cultural universal”. Music has been enjoyed throughout the ages, from babies bobbing their heads to nursery rhymes to elders engaging in dance to a bubbly hip-hop tune; from the newest musical developments and electric guitars to the most rudimentary instruments discovered from ages long past. In fact, the oldest discovered music instrument was made by the Neanderthals, about 60,000 years ago: a simple flute. There is no question that music holds a position of high significance in our society, and has increasingly begun to become of interest to scientists, particularly neuroscientists, as they question: how does music affect our brains?
2. The Neuroanatomy of Music Processing
What might be surprising to people is that there is no one particular section of the brain that processes music. There is a hierarchy in the brain, where lower areas of the brain pass information to the higher stages. The basic building blocks of music, such as loudness, pitch and duration, are encoded first. Higher processes such as discerning different instruments and melodies, linking memories and past knowledge with the music follow in successive stages. The emotional segment of the music is analyzed in a different hierarchy.
Similar to all sounds, music is first processed by the primary auditory cortex. It first codes the basic attributes of the separate sounds and components. The next stages require the cerebral cortex. For pitch in particular, there is a center in the lateral part of Heschl's gyrus, which is located in the temporal lobe (in the lower section of the brain and right above the ears). The superior temporal gyrus analyzes the auditory information, and adjacent areas identify nonverbal sounds, while the temporal and parietal lobes link the auditory information with other non-auditory information (such as information obtained from vision).
All of this confirms that the processing of music is a highly complex process, and engages a major portion of the brain; sections in 3 out of the main 5 lobes of the brain are utilized to analyze music. Music thus rivals language as we know it in its complexity and structure.
Further, the various components of music are analyzed in different ways. Emotion, in particular, employs a partially independent hierarchy from the musical brain in order to be processed. Music uses the cortical system, while emotion relies on the more ancient parts of the brain: the amygdala and the hippocampus, amongst others. Music elicits strong emotional responses similar to basic biological reactions, and kindles the limbic system in contrast to the cortical system.
What about age? How does a difference in age impact a person’s ability to comprehend music? According to an experiment done by Lima and Castro in 2011, as age increased, the ability to identify happy and peaceful music increased while responsiveness to sad and scary music declined.
A further experiment conducted revealed the same results. In particular, it specified that older people experienced lower levels of sadness and fear when presented with the intended audio in comparison to their younger counterparts. Why is this so? It might be due to older adult’s higher emotional resilience and increased focus on their mental well-being, which allows them to focus more on the positive emotions instead of the negative ones.
3. What Can Music Influence?
While music is designed to be aesthetically pleasing to our ears and brains, there’s also more to it than just melodies and lyrics. Music can also positively affect our cognitive skills and language.
This is proved by an experiment where both musicians and non-musicians were asked to differentiate between violin, piano and other tones. Their brain responses were also recorded during this time. It was found that musicians were easily able to differentiate the tones as compared to non-musicians, as expected. When the brain responses between both groups were compared, it became evident that the source of this analysis was in different places in the brain, proving that musical training could alter the auditory processing parts in both structure and function.
In another experiment, the researchers wanted to test whether simple auditory training or sensorimotor auditory training would be more effective in enhancing the auditory cortex. They organized two groups of non-musicians and set the first group to learning a sequence on the piano, and the second group to just listen to music and make judgments on them. At the end of the training, they measured the brain activity of both groups, and it showed that the first group had an enlarged musically elicited mismatch negativity (which is a process that occurs when an infrequent change in a sequence of identical sounds occurs). This proved that sensorimotor learning was more effective in comparison to auditory learning. And this makes sense, of course, because people tend to remember things more if they have written it down. This works on the same principle: having a physical sensation involved with the information that is needed to be remembered is reinforced more by the physical sensation.
So, it is possible that music influences and shapes our cognitive systems, down to their functions and structures. However, can it influence our language?
The studies conducted seem to say yes. In one particular experiment, children were divided into two groups. One group received music training and the other received painting training. The ability of the children to identify the pitch changes in language was determined before and after the training. After the training, it was evident that the children who received music training had more enhanced pitch processing in language over the painting group.
Another experiment suggests that music expertise could enhance perception of pitch variations in a second, unknown language. Portuguese sentences were presented to French adults, none of whom knew the language. The musicians amongst those adults were 300 milliseconds quicker in categorizing the congruous and incongruous sentences in comparison to the non-musicians. And when the deviations were harder to detect, the results showed that the musicians had a better performance compared to the non-musicians.
This suggests that the neuroplasticity of the brain is affected quite strongly by exposure to music, enough to modify certain parts of the brain, down to their structure and functions. All these experiments prove that music can not only be pleasing to our ears, but also has a significant effect on cognition and language, in both children and adults alike.
4. Can Music Help With Neurological Disorders?
There have been many studies that explore the influence of music on the brain, and how it affects cognition and language. But what about another step further? Can music help people suffering from neurological disorders—such as dementia, Alzheimer’s and depression?
Music therapy as a field has been growing leaps and bounds, and supporting evidence has been growing to reinforce the effectiveness of the use of music in a clinical setting to assist patients with neurological disorders. Music engages a variety of the different parts of the brain and thus, neurologists have started to become more interested in exploring music and its possible therapeutic effects.
Several of the experiments conducted on these grounds indicate that there was a significant decrease in depression, anxiety and apathy in patients. A research paper that consolidated the results of a couple hundred studies showed that patients with dementia were asked to undergo various types of music therapy (such as playing instruments, listening to live music, singing and analyzing music), and they showed marked improvement in mood and social interaction, and reported a significant reduction in depressive symptoms, and reduced anxiety overall.
Why does music have such a powerful effect? Music is one of the most enduring facets of human culture. In fact, babies begin to recognize familiar songs at around 7-9 months. This builds upon the fact that Alzheimer’s patients are able to recognize music no matter which stage they are in. Music elicits memories and emotions, which can help those with neurological disorders, especially disorders that affect memory. Personally chosen music can help patients recall more positive memories. Peaceful and happy music also elicits happiness, which might play a role in reducing depressive symptoms.
However, music is not the “end all, be all” cure to these disorders. It helps in reducing depression, anxiety and apathy, yes, but most people did not indicate any marked difference in their quality of life. Music plays a significant role in improving patients’ cognition and reactions, but how and why they are so beneficial is still something to be clarified by further research.
5. Conclusion
Music is a highly significant part of human life and culture. It is important in several aspects, as it helps with focus, cognition, language and even stress. People from all walks of life can benefit from and enjoy music, from young children, to teenagers, to people with neurological disorders. As someone once said, “Music can heal the wounds that medicine cannot touch.”, music has such a widespread impact that no one can deny its influence.
Citations:
Warren, J. (2008, February 1). How does the brain process music?. National Center for Biotechnology Information. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4953706/pdf/32.pdf
Sylvain Moreno. (2009, December 2). Can Music Influence Language and Cognition?. Contemporary Music Review. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07494460903404410
Raglio, A., Attardo, L., Gontero, G., Rollino, S., Groppo, E., & Granieri, E. (2015, March 22). Effects of music and music therapy on mood in neurological patients. World Journal of Psychiatry. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4369551/
Lam, H. L., Li, W. T. V., Laher, I., & Wong, R. Y. (2020, September 25). Effects of Music Therapy on Patients with Dementia—A Systematic Review. Geriatrics (Basel, Switzerland). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7709645/
Vieillard, S., & Gilet, A. L. (2013, October 16). Age-related differences in affective responses to and memory for emotions conveyed by music: a cross-sectional study. Frontiers in Psychology. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3797547/
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