September 15, 2004
By Daniel G. Amen M.D.
If I had to live my life again I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied could thus have been kept active through use.
-- Charles Darwin (from Autobiography, 1887)
Simply Put, Music Moves Us
The brain is everywhere there is news about people. At 3AM, one cold winter morning in the year 2000, I found myself crawling out of bed to take my teenage daughter and her friends to the Oakland Coliseum Box Office to stand in line to buy N'SYNC tickets. The night before Breanne told me that she and a group of friends were going to Oakland to try to get great seats for the concert. It was well known at my house that she was in teenage love with JC, one of the lead singers of the group. I didn't even consider allowing her to go alone and rather than disappoint her with my first impulse, which was “there is no way in hell are you going to Oakland at 3AM with a group of your girlfriends”, I went along. Even in the dark, when we got to the parking lot we could see a very long line of teenage girls waiting anxiously to purchase tickets. As we got in the line the box office staff handed out lottery tickets. Breanne got the number 4, which meant she was fourth in line, among hundreds. As we bought the tickets I heard her squeal with joy as she got front row center seats. All the way to and from the coliseum Breanne and her friends sang N'SYNC songs. Up to that point I had never seen her so happy. The night of the concert Breanne was enraptured by seeing her teen idol perform right in front of her. In fact, she said later that JC's sweat dropped on her head as he performed and that she would never shower again (thankfully she gave up that idea). She was so happy. I, of course, couldn't hear for a week. I sat up in the rafters with my younger daughter. The sound of 15,000 young teenage girls screaming ruined any potential enjoyment from the concert. The pitch of female teenage voices still frightens me to this day.
Why does music move us? Why is it such an important part of our lives? Does the brain have a role in music? Can music be healing? Does it have any dangers, besides blasting out ones eardrums? This week I'll give you a few thoughts on music and the brain.
Babies come into the world wired for music. In mother's womb a child responds to songs in the environment. At about 4 months old they fuss when they hear music they do not like and coo with melodies that please them. Music is in our genes. At an early age, musical capacity is shaped by the culture in which we live. Our background affects how instruments are made, the way we hear sounds when others sing, and even the way we hear music. I have a Lebanese heritage, but was born in the United States. Since I was never exposed to Arabic music at a young age, I often find it grating and uncomfortable. My friends and colleagues who were born in the Middle East love the music. Through the brain music interacts with our environment to create our likes and irritations. Certain types of music can enhance brain function, memory and emotion; while other forms of music can cause us problems. Music is powerful.
As we have seen, the human brain is divided into two hemispheres or sides. Typically, the right side has been identified as the seat of music. However, music affects the whole brain. There is not just one area in the brain responsible for music. In making and listening to music we use both sides; music is an interplay of many functions. It is exactly for this reason that music is healing and has the ability to enhance brain function. Music integrates the whole brain. Some cerebral circuits respond to certain types of music; these circuits may also be involved in processing other forms of sound. The part of the brain that hears pitch is also involved in understanding speech. Sound enters the ears and goes to the auditory cortex in the temporal lobes. The right temporal lobe is important for hearing pitch, melody, harmony and rhythm. The left side of the brain is usually better at hearing changes in frequency and intensity, both in music and words. The left side analyzes incoming data. The right side helps to put music together into a whole piece. Novices tend to listen to music as a whole, with the right side, while musicians tend to hear music with the left hemisphere as they analyze the content of the musical form. The limbic brain processes the emotional aspects of music as well triggering memories. Music triggers emotions and emotions trigger memories. As we will see, music can enhance memory and learning. Music can also trigger memories that make us happy or sad. Hearing “our song” at a wedding anniversary can bring tears of joy and emotional connection; while hearing “our song” three years after a divorce can trigger tears of intense sadness and loss. Music moves our emotions.
Learn a Musical Instrument
If you always wanted to learn a musical instrument, now is the time. Learning to play a musical instrument enhances brain function. It teaches the brain new patterns and stimulates wide areas of the cortex. Music has the capacity to enhance how we think, reason and create. The data is impressive. Experiments using Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major (K.448) produced short-term enhancement of the right hemisphere which helps seeing images in three dimensional pictures (visual spatial reasoning). Additionally, preschool children who received piano keyboard lessons for six months improved their performance dramatically on a visual spatial reasoning task, with the effect lasting for days, whereas control groups (including a computer control group) did not improve. In a follow up study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine 34 preschoolers were given piano keyboard training. After 6 months, all the children could play basic melodies from Mozart and Beethoven. They exhibited significant increases in visual spatial skill (up to 36% improvement) compared to other preschoolers who received computer lessons or other types of stimulation. The College Entrance Examination Board in 1996 reported that students with experience in musical performance scored 51 points higher on the verbal part of the SAT and 39 points high on the math section than the national average. In a study of approximately 7,500 students at a university music and music major had the highest reading scores of any students on campus. Learning a musical instrument, at any age can be helpful to develop and activate temporal lobe neurons. As the temporal lobes are activated in an effective way they are more likely to have improved function overall
The world's top academic countries place a high value on music education. Hungary, Netherlands and Japan stand atop worldwide science achievement and have strong commitment to music education. All three countries have required music training at the elementary and middle school levels, both instrumental and vocal, for several decades. The centrality of music education to learning in the top-ranked countries seems to contradict the United States' focus on math, science, vocabulary, and technology.
Move with the Music
Music is sensory, emotional and motor – we feel the music and it literally moves us. Music is as much about action as it is about perception. When music engages our brain — when performers play or listeners tap, dance, or sing along — the experience of music is often coupled with action. Simple coupling might be foot-tapping in to a beat, whereas more complex coupling would be dancing a waltz, singing a song, or playing a melody on a violin. Passionate coupling may be making love to music, such as Ravel's Bolero.
Mozart for Focus
In one controlled study Mozart has been found helpful for ADD children. Rosalie Rebollo Pratt and colleagues studies 19 children, ages seven to seventeen, with ADD while playing recordings of Mozart during three times a week brain wave biofeedback sessions. 100 Masterpieces, Vol. 3: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the music used. It included the selections of Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, The Marriage of Figaro, Flute Concerto No. 2 in D, Don Giovanni and other concertos and sonatas. The group that listened to Mozart had reduced their theta brain wave activity (slow brain waves often excessive in ADD) in exact rhythm to the underlying beat of the music, and displayed better focus and mood control, diminished impulsivity and improved social skill. Among the subjects that improved, 70 % maintained that improvement six months after the end of the study without further training.
Can Music Help in Healing?
Understanding the neuroscience of music will allow us to harness its healing power. Studies have shown that following heart bypass surgery patients in intensive care units where background music is played needed lower doses of drugs compared with patients in units where no music is played. Some hospitals play soft background music in intensive care units for premature babies. Researchers have found that such music, as well as a nurse's or mother's humming, helps babies to gain weight faster and to leave the unit earlier than premature babies who don't hear these sounds. On the other end of life, music has been used to calm Alzheimer's patients. Mealtime in nursing homes can be a struggle; certain types of music have been shown to reduce confusion and irritability. In a University of Louisville Medical School study of retired nuns in two nursing homes researchers introduced the playing of recorders and other instruments as the only change in the environment. They discovered significant improvements in memory: playing music, reading notes and moving fingers enhanced memory. Researchers have also found that music lowers blood pressure in certain situations and increase oxygen consumption by the heart. Researchers in the Rome, Italy used music therapy as an additional treatment for severely brain injured patients. The therapy consisted of musical improvisation between the patient and therapist by singing or by playing different musical instruments, according to their own unique abilities. Thirty-four patients were studied who had been in a coma for an average of 52 days. The results of the study showed that patients who had music therapy had a significant reduction of undesired behaviors such as inertia or agitation.
The music you listen to matters!
After she heard me lecture on music and the brain, my N'SYNC daughter, Breanne, did a study with 12 of her friends for a psychology class. She timed them playing the game Memory while they listened to nothing, Mozart, rock, heavy metal, and rap music. She found that they did best when they listened to Mozart (even better than to listening to nothing at all), and worst when they listened to heavy metal and rap music.
As a neuropsychiatrist for the past 20 years my clinics have amassed the world's largest database of brain scans related to behavior, more than 21,000. The brain is involved in everything we do and must be considered whenever we look at the motivation or reason behind human behavior.
"Brain In The News" is offered as a free service to people in the media to help them educate the public on how the brain relates to our behavior. You can see over 300 color 3D brain SPECT images at www.brainplace.com.
Daniel Amen, M.D.
Amen Clinics, Inc.
Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior
UC, Irvine School of Medicine