Music's Effect on the Brain

YES, I'm one of THOSE people. Those annoying people who think my music is better than your music. Be it Mozart or well, pretty much anything out of Manchester, I can listen to it over and over and never grow tired. 

Some people need absolute silence to concentrate. Music is my version of silence, ubiquitous in my world. It inspires, calms, evokes and energizes. That said, not just any music will do. The wrong kind of music might just as well be a jack hammer for the effect it will have on my concentration. 





So my questions today are: 

• Does listening to music have any kind of chemical effect on our brains? 

• The frantic manner in which many people grab for their Shazam when a certain song comes on the radio definitely suggests a drug-like dependency. 

• And if so, does this have the potential to create a dependency. 
• And if so, is this dependency acquired or innate? 

Music's Effect on the Brain: 

AN extended period of musical training has been shown to aid memory. [13]

PET-SCANS have shown that identical functional regions of the brain are activated by language and melodic phrases. [10]


TURNS out there are volume differences (as in volume of grey matter) in the motor, auditory and visual-spatial brain regions between musicians and non-musicians. [11]


‘CHILLS.’ You know what I’m talking about, right? PET-scans have shown that there is an increase in cerebral blood flow to areas linked with pleasure, emotion and reward when people experience ‘chills’ while listening to music. [12] 

• Conversely, unpleasant melodies have been shown to activate the parts of the brain associated with emotional pain. [1][9]

THOSE with congenital amusia, or tone deafness lack the ability to distinguish between pitches. They also cannot be taught to remember a melody or to recite a song. 

• However, they are still capable of distinguishing the different intonations of speech as might be used in speaking a question versus a statement. [1]

LISTENING to music has a demonstrated ability to create a state of arousal and craving through the release of dopamine. 

• Dopamine, the 'feel good' chemical, is part of our brain’s system of issuing rewards for things that are essential for our survival. 

• This specific dopamine-based system of rewards has long been believed to be reserved solely for the more tangible essentials like food and sex. [5][6]

THERE is a name for when a song gets stuck in your head. It’s called an ‘earworm.’ 

• There are other names too, including: ‘repetunitis,' ‘melodymania' and 'brain itch.'

There are several theories as to why this happens. 

• They range from the age old adage: ‘The harder you try not to think about something, the more you will.’ 

• To the brain’s auditory cortex having a need or an 'itch' to repeat a certain melody over and over until it is sufficiently scratched. [3][4]

(9/21/14 Update: I just came across a well-done and succinct video on this subject at: http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/18/on-repeat-margulis/)

THE MOZART EFFECT, is not the idea that listening to Mozart’s music will make you smarter. 

The original study from which the myth sprang never tested IQ. 

Rather, the idea of an effect was based on research that suggested listening to certain pieces of music by Mozart may induce short-term improvements in spatial-temporal reasoning. 

However, subsequent research strongly suggests that any improvement in spatial-temporal reasoning is minimal, if at all, and is by no means exclusive to the music of Mozart. [7][8]





And let's end with a difference of opinion on the subject of music's effect on the brain. Why not, eh?


IN his book How the Mind Works, noted author and Harvard Professor, Steven Pinker reiterates Immanuel Kant's view that music is not in itself an important cognitive phenomenon, but that it happens to stimulate important auditory and spatio-motoric cognitive functions. 

• Pinker compares music to "auditory cheesecake", stating that: "As far as biological cause and effect is concerned, music is useless.” [8]

THIS argument has been rejected by Daniel Levitin and Joseph Carroll, experts in music cognition, who argue that music has had an important role in the evolution of human cognition.[8][14 - 19] 

• In his book This Is Your Brain On Music, Levitin argues that music could provide adaptive advantage through sexual selection, social bonding, and cognitive development, noting that many species display music-like habits that could be seen as precursors to human music. [20]  

Oh, and just one more thing,


I would like to recommend the NOVA documentary, "Musical Minds." It aired on June 30th, 2009 on PBS. It is based on Oliver Sack's 2007 book, "Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the human brain."


One of the many things I found interesting in this documentary was shown when Oliver Sacks had a scan taken of his brain while listening to various pieces of music. (For him it was Bach but I'm using Mozart in my example.)

So let's say you enjoy Haydn, but LOVE Mozart. 

Or, put another way: If you listen to a similar piece of music from each composer, it will be the Mozart piece which will elevate you to a state of bliss unattainable by Haydn. 

And interestingly, this will show up as increased activity in your brain scan when listening to the favored composer. 

Where this gets more interesting is when you then listen to another two pieces of music, again let's take Mozart and Haydn. 

But this time, you are unmoved by either piece of music. 

Both pieces leave you feeling a bit, meh. 

Your brain will still show increased activity when listening to the Mozart composition. 

It's like your brain knows what you like, or what makes you happy, even when you don't register it consciously.

***

FIN

UPDATES & RELATED

October 22, 2015 / Music listening habits tell about mental health / ScienceDaily
September 12, 2015 / Study suggests music can act as an auditory trigger for addictive cravings / psypost.org

July 22, 2015 / The Strange Phenomenon of Musical 'skin organsms' / bbc.com
July 19, 2015 / Brain Structure May Determine Who Gets Catchy Songs Stuck In Their Head The Most / Medical Daily 

July 11, 2015 / Brain scans reveal the neural networks that get songs stuck in your head / PsyPost

June 19, 2015 / Happy Music: Listening To Extreme Music, Like Heavy Metal, Might Make Sad People Feel Better / Medical Daily

March 26, 2015 / Medical Daily / Are You Listening? (INFOGRAPHIC)

March 13, 2015 / Listening To Classical Music Enhances Gene Activity: An Update On The Mozart Effect / Medical Daily

March 18, 2014 / Musical Ecstasy And The Piloerection / Stufftoblowyourmind.com

References & Resources


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_neuroscience_of_music
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm
[3] "Why do songs get stuck in my head?" 28 October 2008. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/songs-stuck-in-head.htm> 16 September 2014.
[4] http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v14/n2/full/nn.2726.html
[5] http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/musical-chills-related-to-brain-dop-11-01-09/
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart_effect
[7] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1281386/
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker
[9] Tramo, M. J. (2001). "BIOLOGY AND MUSIC: Enhanced: Music of the Hemispheres". Science 291 (5501): 54–6. doi:10.1126/science.10.1126/SCIENCE.1056899. PMID 11192009.
[10] Brown, Steven; Martinez, Michael J.; Parsons, Lawrence M. (2006). "Music and language side by side in the brain: A PET study of the generation of melodies and sentences". European Journal of Neuroscience 23 (10): 2791–803. doi:10.1111/j.1460-9568.2006.04785.x. PMID 16817882.
[11] Gaser, C; Schlaug, G (2003). "Brain structures differ between musicians and non-musicians". The Journal of Neuroscience 23 (27): 9240–5. PMID 14534258.
[12] Blood, A. J.; Zatorre, R. J. (2001). "Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98 (20): 11818. doi:10.1073/pnas.191355898.
[13] Burriss, Kathleen Glascott; Strickland, Susan J. (2001). "Review of Research: Music and the Brain in Childhood Development". Childhood Education 78 (2): 100. doi:10.1080/00094056.2002.10522714.
[14] Levitin, D. J. and Tirovolas, A. K. (2009), Current Advances in the Cognitive Neuroscience of Music. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1156: 211–231.
[15] Perlovsky L. Music. Cognitive Function, Origin, And Evolution Of Musical Emotions . WebmedCentral PSYCHOLOGY 2011;2(2):WMC001494
[16] Alison Abbott. 2002. Neurobiology: Music, maestro, please! Nature 416, 12–14 (7 March 2002) | doi:10.1038/416012a
[17] Cross, I. (1999). Is music the most important thing we ever did? Music, development and evolution. [preprint (html)] [preprint (pdf)] In Suk Won Yi (Ed.), Music, mind and science (pp 10–39), Seoul: Seoul National University Press.
[18] "Interview with Daniel Levitin". Pbs.org. May 20, 2009.
[19] Carroll, Joseph (1998). "Steven Pinker's Cheesecake For The Mind". Cogweb.ucla.edu.
[20] Levitin, Daniel. 2006. This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, New York: Dutton/Penguin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpUVMpX62nw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SePL2w5f6dE
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/116/24/F139.full.pdf
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/03/13/seven-reasons-why-music-benefits-your-health/
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/Music_Leutwyler_01.html


Image Credit

"Wolfgang-amadeus-mozart 1" by Barbara Krafft - Deutsch, Otto Erich (1965) Mozart: A Documentary Biography. Stanford: Stanford University Press.. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wolfgang-amadeus-mozart_1.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Wolfgang-amadeus-mozart_1.jpg