The Brain and Music

By: Madison, Angela, Milena, and Tia

Article Review

Our brains:

• Dedicated to vision

• Finger movement etc.

• There is no one part of the brain that is dedicated to music

• Various parts of the brain play important roles

• Work together for us to understand and appreciate music

Music and Infancy

Effects of Music Therapy in the NICU

• When premature infants non-nutritive sucking (a skill needed for bottle feeding and breastfeeding) was reinforced with musical stimuli infants developed the skill faster

• Done ten minutes prior to nipple feeding increased state of wakefulness and decreased time it took to ingest nutrition

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSFYdC-b5C8

Explanation of PAL

Benefits of Parent-Infant Music Programs

1 year old babies who participate in interactive music classes with their parents as opposed to simply passive listening to music showed infants to:

• Smile more

• Be easier to soothe

• Self soothe

• Communicate better

• Have earlier social interaction

• Develop earlier joint attention

• More sophisticated brain responses to music

Music and Early Childhood Education in Mathematics

• Steady beat is processed in the premotor cortex of the brain

• Related to increased attention

• Studies show that young children’s brain activity is more engaged in “rhythm-only-music” (steady drum beat) then acapella stimuli

Music and Math Cont’

Music makes the learning environment more enjoyable

• Promotes fun and learning

• Allows children to actively participate

• Highly social, natural and developmentally appropriate way to engage even the youngest child in math learning

The Effects of Musical Training on Structural Brain Development

Adult musicians in comparison to non-musicians show structural and functional differences in the sensorimotor, auditory, and multimodal integration areas of the brain.

Longitudinal Study- Musical Training and Structural Brian Development• Study looked at 15 children who received private keyboard

instruction for 15 months• 16 children who did not (although were taking a weekly music

class at school)• Children in each group went through a series of behavioural tests

and an MRI

*All research was approved by an ethics committee

The scientific power of music – this video will lead into the benefits of music and health promotion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SePL2w5f6dE

Benefits of Music and Health Promotion

• Pain therapy

• Reduced blood Pressure

• Speeds post stroke recovery

• Chronic headaches and migraine remedy

• Boosts immune system

• Increases IQ

• Improves memory performance

• Improves mood and decreases depression

Music and Pain Therapy

• Music serves as a distracter

• Music gives the patient a sense of control

• Music causes the body to release endorphins that counteract pain

• Slow music relaxes a person by slowing breathing and heartbeat

Music and Post-Stroke Recovery

Patients in Finland who listened to music for a few hours a day showed significant improvement in:

• Verbal memory

• Attention span

• This was as compared to patients who did not

Music and the Immune SystemWhen someone has a profound and positive emotional experience with the music they are listening to or singing:

• There is an increase in the secretion of immune boosting hormones

• There is a decrease in the secretion of cortisol (stress related hormone)

* higher levels of cortisol can result in decreased immune response

Music and IQListening to music or playing an instrument can actually make a person learn better and lead to increased brain function in:

• Reading and literacy skills

• Spatial-temporal reasoning

• Mathematical abilities

• Emotional Intelligence

Music and Memory• Children who take music lessons develop a better

memory compared to children who have no music training

• Information learned while listening to a particular song can often be recalled simply by replaying the song mentally

* It is important to note that in order for songs to increase recall abilities they must not have a vocal components

Music, Mood, and Depression

Music reduces stress and anxiety and even depression by:

• Increasing physical relaxation

• Aid in stress relief activities

• Reduce negative emotions

Discussion Questions1. Does the kind of music we listen to affect how we act?

A: YES. A slower paced type of music such as classic will slow down our heart rate and relax us, where as a more fast paced song may increase our heart rate and can affect our emotions where we may react to a scenario more aggressively

2. If music is so beneficial for many health reasons and brain functioning, then do you think it should be more widely used in our education? (For example: should it be more of a mandatory part of our education just how English and math are)

ReferencesBentsson, S.L., Ullen, F., Ehrsson, H.H., Hashimoto, T., Kito, T., Naito, E., Forssberg, H., & Norihiro, S. (2008) Elsevier. doi 10.1016/j.cortex.2008.07.002. Geist, K., Geist, E.A., & Kuznik, K. (2012). The patterns of music: Children birth through 5 learning through beat, rhythm, and melody. National Association for Education of Young Children.  Hyde, K.L., Lerch, J., Norton, A., Foregeard, M., Winner, E., Evans, A.C., & Schlaug, G. (2009). The effects of musical training on

structural brain development: A longitudinal study. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

1169182- 186. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04852.x

References (Cont’)McMaster University (2012, May 9). Babies’ brains benefit from music lessons, even before they can walk and talk. ScienceDaily, Retrieved January 15, 2013, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05.120509123653.htm Standley, J.M., Cassidy, J., Grant, R., Cevasco, A., Szuch, C., Nguyen, J., &...Adams, K. (2010). The effect of music reinforcement for non-nutritive sucking on nipple feeding of premature infants. Pediatric Nursing. 36(3). 138-145.