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The Effects of Music and the Brain
Motivational/Hedonic (pleasure) / Learning / Memory
I think the major point here, making music engages all of these components. These will not be discussed in detail here. I hope that readers will go through this list and ask themselves the relation of music to each of these brain functions. Just think about everything that one does while playing from a score.
Finally, some speculative conclusions that can serve as a first approximation to better understand how music interacts with the brain.
Making Music "exercises" the whole brain and mind.
Making Music can strengthen synapses in all brain systems.
Making Music increases the brain's capacity and resources by increasing the strength of connections among its neurons.
This "sketch" provides a starting point for considering the effects of music on the brain that would be the neural substrates of effects of music on cognition and behavior. Whether or not research on such effects influences educational philosophy and practical decisions about the role of music in curricula, understanding the substrates of music should illuminate both music itself and the workings of the brain and mind.
Briefly Noted
Wellness, Survival, Music and the Arts
The processes that contribute to health
and longevity are of great interest. A recent publication
provides evidence that attendance at cultural events,
reading and making music or singing in a choir are
associated with both health and longevity. Dr. Lars Olov
Bygren and co-workers at the Department of Social
Medicine in the University of Umeå in Sweden studied 12,
675 people, selected as a random sample of the Swedish
population. The age range was 16-74 years. They were
interviewed first in 1982-83 and followed-up until the
beginning of 1992. Many variables were studied. As might
be expected, smoking, long term disease and lack of
exercise were associated with increased mortality. When
all other variables were controlled for, the authors
found that involvement in cultural events, reading and
music were related positively to longevity (British
Medical Journal, 1996, vol. 313, pgs. 1577-1580).
Interestingly, educational level was not related to these
effects. The authors are appropriately cautious about
drawing strong conclusions. Additional demographic
studies should be of great interest, particularly to
determine if such positive relationships hold across
cultural groups.
Melodic Therapy Changes Brain Activation and Promotes Language Recovery After Brain Damage
Music therapies are in widespread use for a variety of behavioral and neurological problems. When positive effects are obtained on behavior, the brain mechanisms involved remain a mystery. Now comes evidence that a certain type of music therapy has behavioral benefits via measurable changes in brain function. Dr. Pascal Belin and his associates, working at the Service Hospitalier Frederic Joliot in Orsay and other institutions in France report that Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT) promotes recovery from aphasia, a severe language disorder subsequent to stroke. MIT involves speaking in a type of musical manner, characterized by strong melodic (two notes, high and low) and temporal (two durations, long and short) components. Reporting in the December 1966 issue of Neurology(vol. 47, pgs. 1504-1511), Belin et al studied seven patients who had a lengthy absence of spontaneous recovery. They also evaluated the effects of MIT on the brain by measuring relative cerebral blood flow (CBF) and PET scanning during hearing and
repetition of simple words and of
"MIT-loaded" words. MIT produced recovery of
speech capabilities. Of great interest, a critical
regions of the brain was activated by
"MIT-loaded" words but not regular words. This
is Broca's Area in the left hemisphere, known for over
100 years to be critically implicated in language and
speech. The authors believe that the reactivation by MIT
of Broca's Area was critical to recovery of speech. These
findings provide enormous promise for both the treatment
of aphasia and understanding the role of music in normal
and abnormal brain function.
Music and Spatial Task Performance
Music and Spatial Task Performance
Frances H. Rausher - Gordon
L. Shaw* - Katherine N. Ky
Center for the Neurobiology of Learning
and Memory,
University of California, Irvine,
California 92717, USA
There are correlational , historical ,and
anectodal relationships between music cognition and other
`higher brain functions', but no causal relationship has
been demonstrated between music and cognition and
cognitions pertaining to abstract operations such as
mathematical or spatial reasoning. We performed an
experiment in which students were each given three sets
of standard IQ spatial reasoning tasks; each task was
preceded by 10 minutes of (1) listening to Mozart's
sonata for two pianos in D major, K448; (2) listening to
a relaxation tape; or (3) silence. Performance was
improved for those tasks immediately following the first
condidion compared to the second two. Thirty-six college
students participated in all three listening conditions.
Immediately following each listening condition, the
student's spatial 4 reasoning skills were tested using
the Stanford-Binet intelligence scale . The mean standard
age scores (SAS) for the three listening conditions are
shown in the figure. The music condition yielded a mean
SAS of 57.56; the mean SAS for the relaxation condition
was 54.61 and the mean score for the silent condition was
54.00. To assess the impact of these scores, we
`translated' them to spatial IQ scores of 119, 111 and
110, respectively. Thus, the IQs of subjects
participating in the music condidion were 8-9 points
above their IQ scores in the other two conditions. A
one-factor (listening condition) repeated measures
analysis of variance (ANOVA) performed on SAS revealed
that subjects performed better on the abstract/spatial
reasoning tests after listening to Mozart than after
listening to either the relaxation tape or to nothing (F
= 7.08; 2,35 P = 0.002). The music condition differed
significantly from both the relaxation and the silence
conditions (Scheffe's t = 3.41, P = 0.002; t = 3.67, P =
0.0008, two-tailed, respectively). The relaxation and
silence conditions did not differ (t = 0.795; P = 0.432,
two-tailed). Pulse rates were taken before and after each
listening condition. A two-factor (listening condition
and time of pulse measure) repeated measures ANOVA
revealed no interaction or main effects for pulse,
thereby excluding arousal as an obvious cause. We found
no order effects for either condition presentation or
task, nor any experimenter effect. The enhancing effect
of the music condition is temporal, and does not extend
beyond the 10-15 minute period during which subjects were
engaged in each spatial task. Inclusion of a delay period
(as a variable) between the music listening condition and
the testing period would allow us quantitatively to
determine the presence of a decay constant. It would also
be interesting to vary the listening time to optimize the
enhancing effect, and to examine whether other measures
of general intelligence (verbal reasoning, quantitative
reasoning and short-term memory) would be similarly
facilitated. Because we used only one musical sample of
one composer, various other compositions and musical
styles should also be examined. We predict that music
lacking complexity or which is repetitive may interfere
with, rather than enhance, abstract reasoning. Also, as
musicians may process music in a different way from
non-musicians, it would be interesting to compare these
two groups. Figure note: Testing procedure. In the music
condition, the subject listened to 10 min of the Mozart
piece. The relaxation condition required the subject to
listen to 10 min of relaxation instructions designed to
lower blood pressure. The silence condition required the
subject to sit in silence for 10 min. One of three
abstract reasoning tests taken from the 4 Stanford-Binet
intelligence scale was given after each of the listening
conditions. The abstract/spatial reasoningtasks consisted
of a pattern analysis test, a multiple-choice matrices
test and a multiple-choice paper-folding and cutting
test. For our sample, these three tasks correlated at the
0.01 level of significance. We were thus able to treat
them as equal measures of abstract reasoning ability.
Scoring. Raw scores were calculated by subtracting the
number of items failed from the highest item number
administered. These were then converted to SAS using the
Stanford-Binet's SAS conversion table of normalized
standard scores with a mean set at 50 and a standard
deviation of 8. IQ equivalents were calculated by first
mulitplying each SAS by 3 (the number of subtests
required by the Stanford-Binet for calculating IQs). We
then used their area score conversion table, designed to
have a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16, to
obtain SAS IQ equivalents.
1. Hassler, M., Birbaumer, N. & Feil,
A. Psychol. Music (13), 99-113 (1985). 2. Allman, G.J.
Greek Geometry from Thales to Euclid p.23 (Arno, New
York, 1976). 3. Cranberg, L.D. & Albert, M. L. in The
Exceptional Brain (eds Obler, L.K. & Fein, D.) 156
(Guilford, New York, 1988). 4. Thorndike, R. L., Hagen,
E. P. & Sattler, J. M. The Stanford-Binet Scale of
Intelligence (Riverside, Chicago, 1986). Nature, Vol.
365, 14 October 1993, p. 611
Reprints: Center for the Neurobiology of
Learning and Memory, University of California, Irvine,
California 92717, USA
A special Thanks to University of California Irvine (MuSICA)
