Music is a topic many are passionated about. It has the power to influence life on earth in ways never imagined before. But it's in the brain that its effects are most to be celebrated. Music has the power of healing the immune system and influence cognitive behaviour.
Music in Ancient Rome has a signified word, meaning ‘The art of the muses’, representing the Goddesses themselves. The Muses were literally the Greek goddesses of poetic inspiration. According to Hesiod (a philosopher at the time), the prevailing tradition he established was that, most commonly the Goddesses were depicted as the nine daughters of Zeus and the Titaness Mnemosyne (The Goddess of memory). So music by the ancient Romans were indeed a depiction of the heavens through the celebration of the God's existence, and as something divine. It ruled ancient lives and it was considered mighty and powerful. So when we speak the word ‘Music’ in English Today, 'music' itself as derived from the Greek word ‘mousikos’, referring to all the arts governed by Zeus's nine daughters, such as the ancient Muses (Goddesses). We speak about something superior than anything on earth. One of the most famous Zeu's daughters we knew, was Diana, who later became imortalised as 'Wonder Women' by Marvel. Apollo her brother, also son of Zeus (not a Goddess but a God himself) was is in fact considered the God of music. From there, we can imagine and revisit those ancient stories with fondness of how the past treated music and its power. The ancient times thought the world that music, were, part of a divine entity but also the art itself was governed by the Gods. We later came not only to understand more about it and appreciate music for its powerful properties, but to also worship.
The power houses of Music Today, such as Disco music, House, Funky, Samba music, and all styles that are derived from it, has a mass influence in how people not only experience music and its power, but to connect. We have nightclubs and the health care industries working side by side with it, with a great number of individuals not only looking for healing, monetise or pleasure from it, but to study its effects in our bodies and minds. It’s our brains that tells how mighty music is to us all, not so much our tastes in music alone.
The adored deities of Ancient Rome, of song, dance, poetry and memory, on whose mercy the creativity, wisdom and insight of all artists and thinkers depended on it knew the full power of music over us on ‘mere mortals’. A great numbers of researches took place Today to discover everything they knew about it before, and that archeological researches alone could not actually ever imagine. The effects of music in our brains. We can recreate stories of ancient groups of individuals such as Romans, Vikings, Indigenous whose lives and music had a great impact of influencing their activities and cerimonies but we couldn't really tell how much power it really had over those people’s lives until Today. Today studies and researches on music and its effects in the brain brings us to more understanding of the power of the ‘Muses’ not only on our brains alone but in our bodies, and the influence it has in our own lives and experiences.
A great example of how music was used in mass to affect behaviour, was in wars. Between 1933 to 1945 music played a great part in influencing the youth in Germany recruiting them and teaching them about Nazi values, so they could join the war to fight for Hitler and his party ideals, while reinforcing the importance of race supremacy in the minds of those whose still in doubt about its value. Later what the Nazis pioneered was how their music could empower their brains to action and into enforcement of their values, which became their own 'law enforcement'. They proved that music and propaganda was a very powerful tool and they used at their own full advantage without much perception of the general public, who was completely submissive to it. The Nazis also knew the power of teaching their children throughout music from a very early age.
Throughout the war effort, Hitler Youth raised flagging morale by singing at community events, hospitals, and factories. Germans were bombarded with propaganda in music. In the words of one Hitler Youth executive, performances of the "Hitler Youth Cultural Circle" simultaneously supported the war effort and "expose the boys and girls to the nation's most valuable cultural heritage. German musical traditions, which were fused with party-centered patriotism, racism, xenophobia, hate, extreme nationalism and white supremacy. These methods still being used Today in western music industry, not so much propagating Nazism, but 'trends' and other different values.
The music Hitler Youth played had an important role in Hitler’s state indoctrination plan and to elevate public morale as excuses for atrocities done to so many other individuals who were also German, but not considered as superior, music helped the war to boost its power towards hate against other individuals even if those were too German descends, and the visual arts validated and eulogised the idea of the musical arts of German Hitler’s youth. A mural by Jürgen Wegener shows the ideal musical setting for the boys of the Hitler Youth. The centerpiece of his triptych shows six boys in a circle, grasping bugle and drum, joining in the anthem entitled "For us the sun never sets." Such images were infused with the National Socialist desire to unite the nation through the martial music of the youth, in purpose of hate, but the propaganda was 'unity'. It was not merely by coincidence, after all, that Leni Riefenstahl chose to highlight group musical activities of German youth in her film apotheosis of the Nazi Party, Triumph of the Will. The German song culture of the time, was implemented in a successful bid to assume the leading role in the music education of the youth. Such a perspective is particularly necessary when one considers Germany occupied an elite position at the end of Weimar period as a ‘world leader in the realm of music education’. In the free-wheeling mélange that preceded Hitler's accession to the Chancellorship, a number of German music educators and pedagogues had experimented with bold pedagogical approaches that have since become the pillars of Western musical education.
Like the music, historians whose work is examined by Pamela Potter, German music educator, it also had to pay obeisance to the skewed racial theories of the National Socialist leadership. While music historians were scrounging selectively for examples of "Musik im Judentum," the task of music educators became similarly wrapped up with the National Socialist cause. One National Socialist music educator, Fritz Jöde, wrote of the important role played by music in Kindergarten level, a level he clearly believed should mark the beginning of over state control over children. Euphemistically, Jöde wrote of Kindergarten as "a conclusive break from children's reliance on their mothers" and the beginning of "going their own way...to fulfill their goals and dreams as adults”. It was the music in kindergarten that clearly marked an opportunity for the state to sedulously promote Nazism, hate and xenophobia through ideological texts from a very early age. Hitler’s hijacked the brains of those who were vulnerable, and the children in Germany at that time were one of the most, their years of development and education were fulfilled with Nazism ideology. It was the beginning of Hitler's mass control. Kindegarten music engraved his power on children’s brains.
Wolfgang Stumme, an educator and editor, became one of the most prolific advocates of National Socialist music education. His 1944 essay "Music in the Hitler Youth" reveals much about the climate for arts education under the Nazis. Stumme enthusiastically cited over nine hundred musical groups united under the banner of the Hitler Youth, including all manner of youth choirs. He also noted the presence of "orchestras”, instrumental groups, groups of wind-playing comrades, music teams, sport and fanfare teams and songs playing on puppet shows and radio groups.
As Shakespeare might have said, what’s in a few musical notes? Apparently quite a lot. The power of music is so feared by authoritarian regimes that their practice of it and use for brainwashing it’s not enough. They censor artistic expression. In Mao’s China, outright banned the arts that did not serve the ideological needs of the state. In Soviet Union, censors had to approve music, and it included all music to be released to the public and its respective publication. Music has long been an avenue for profound expression of resistance, power and morale booster during wartime. It is what it does with our brains, memories and behaviour that drives studies and researches from around the world to master what it really does to us.
We understand Today that Music provides a total brain workout and mood boost. It helps to promote, and elevates dopamine levels in the brain. Research has shown that listening to music can reduce anxiety, blood pressure, and pain as well as improve sleep quality, mood, mental alertness, and memory. The medicine is in the air with music.
Neurons in the brain fires up with the beat of music, which helps people feel more connected to one another in an elevated level by literally synchronising their brain waves when they listen to the same song together or apart.
"What we used to say in the '60s is, 'Hey, I'm on the same wavelength as you man,'" because “Music does evoke a sense of wonder and awe for lots of people," says Daniel Levitin (https://www.daniellevitin.com/), a neuroscientist at McGill University who scans the brain of people while they listen to music tunes.
"Some of it is still mysterious to us," he says, "But what we can talk about are some neural circuits or networks involved in the experience of pleasure and reward."
“It's literally true — your brain waves are synchronised listening to music." Says Levitin
Music also has a calming effect, slowing our heart rate, deepening our breathing and lowering stress hormones while elevating levels of dopamine in brain. This makes us feel more connected to one another as well as the world around us, especially when we start engaging into dancing, by dancing and singing together, we connect in ways never seen before.
"Those pathways of changing our body, symbolising what is vast and mysterious to us, and then moving our bodies, triggers the mind into a state of wonder," Dacher Keltner (https://psychology.berkeley.edu/people/dacher-keltner), a University of California, Berkeley, psychologist, explains.
"We imagine, 'Why do I feel this way? What is this music teaching me about what is vast and mysterious?' Music allows us to feel these transcendent emotions.”
“We feel we're part of a community and that alone has a direct effect on our health and well-being," which is crucial to survival.
That could be the reason why music plays such a powerful role in spirituality and religious cerimonies, including rituals and celebrations. It symbolises life.
Of all the arts, music is the earliest available to a child, even before birth, because the sense of hearing, unlike other senses, is fully developed. Music affects a child’s overall development (physical, intellectual, and emotional), and all stages of development, as pointed out by many educators, linguists, and psychologists (Campbell, 2005). Despite many disagreements about the actual effect of music on human health, some facts are hard to ignore. Music plays a vital role in prenatal and postnatal development, because in this period of life, a person is most susceptible to influences and shaping, and everything done or not done leaves lasting consequences on the child (Mrđen, 2002). The prevailing view is that stimulations through music, movement, and other arts directly affect a child’s intelligence. Therefore, psychologists, coming out with seven types of intelligence, include musical intelligence among them (Živković, 2008). The actual effects of music on humans are manifested by changes in the brain’s electrical activity, blood pressure, pulse, blood flow, galvanic skin resistance, respiration, and muscle tone and are all measurable and scientifically proven (Rojko, 2004).
Charnetski and Brennan (2001) in their book ”Feeling good is good for you: How Pleasure can boost your immune system and lengthen your life”, present the results of their research on causing the secretion of certain biochemical compounds in the human body while listening to music. For this research, a 30-minute piano composition based on Bach’s chorales was composed. A group of 25 people listened to the composition in C major, 29 people listened to the same composition but in C minor, and 23 people sat in silence for 30 minutes. Each subject gave a saliva sample before and after the test. Analysis showed that sitting in silence and listening to the composition in the minor left the condition unchanged, while listening to the composition in major significantly increased the values of immunoglobulin A (IgA) in the saliva of the subjects, one of the most important chemical compounds in the immune system. The identical procedure was repeated with another group of subjects, which gave exactly the same results. They also conducted further research on the effects of listening to various types of music, sounds and silence in the subject’s immunity, proving that being in silence doesn’t change the state of the immune system, listening to uncoordinated noise damages immunity, and listening to music (in this case soft rock and light jazz) has a positive impact, which depends on how much someone likes the music they listen to.
In 1839 Heinrich Wilhelm Dove Investigating the effect of low-frequency current on the brain, concluded that it is possible to direct the brain and force it to accept different frequencies in both ears, but at the same time follow the third, the frequency that is the difference between the previous two, which is so-called ”phantom sound“. The brain begins to emit a signal equal to the difference between the two signals we brought to the ears. This signal is called binaural rhythm or tone. It works so that if we introduce a signal of, say, 100 Hz into one ear, and a signal of, say, 108 Hz, into the other, the brain hears a signal difference of 8 Hz. Using binaural rhythm in such a way, it is possible to adjust the brain waves to the desired level. This tells us that the brain can be influenced, and its work controlled. Robert Monroe also worked in this field. He showed in his experiments that combining certain sounds can cause modification of cerebral activity, leading to various changes in an individual’s mood; from states of deep relaxation or sleep to expanded states of consciousness (Filimon, 2010).
Changes in brain wave activity that occur during binaural wave perception do not occur only in the area of the brain responsible for hearing, or only in one or the other hemisphere, but the whole brain is involved. With waveforms of both hemispheres becoming equal in frequency, amplitude, phase, and coherence, which actually represents hemispheric synchronization (Gray, 2005). Therefore, looking at binaural rhythm from another perspective, it can be defined as a specific audio technique or training to change brain waves, which is confirmed by research that has established the effectiveness of binaural waves in brain wave training (Vukić, 2014). The benefits of using a binaural wave are reported by Seifi Alaa et al., (2018), who mention effects such as those related to verbal memory, relaxation, dual cognitive tasks, working memory and reduction of pain and anxiety. Seifi Alaa et al, (2018) in their study, examined the effect of a 7 Hz binaural rhythm on the change in brain activity within the cortex. Research has shown no significant changes within the cortex occurred during the first three minutes of using the binaural rhythm. However, prolonged brain exposure to the same rhythm (6 min) caused effective changes in the relative brain activity of the temporal and parietal lobes compared to the control group. It has also been shown that it takes at least nine minutes to stimulate the brain with a binaural wave to synchronise the entire brain’s neural network.
Robert Monroe, like his predecessors, noticed that our brain operated at different frequencies, depending on our activity, so they classified these frequencies (brain waves) according to brain activity as the brain uses them:
• >40 Hz Gamma waves – activated when intense mental activity is involved, including perception, problem-solving, fear, and awareness.
• 13-40 Hz Beta waves – activated when it comes to productive thinking, concentration, alertness, and learning
• 7-13 Hz Alpha waves – activated when relaxing (while awake) or snoozing.
• 4-7 Hz Theta waves – sleep with dreams, deep meditation.
• <4 Hz Delta waves – deep sleep (“no dreams”), loss of body consciousness.
Given that the development of brain oscillations ranges from the lowest frequencies, which allow us to grow and regenerate to those that allow us to think analytically and act in higher frequencies, it is logical to concluded that if we want to extract the greatest possible potential from the person, we must bring this person’s brain to the state in which it acted most plastically. Plasticity of the central nervous system allows us to stimulate the brain to reorganise at the earliest period, with early stimulations. The function of the damaged part is taken over by healthy parts of the brain (Bošnjak-Nađ et al., 2005). Since neural plasticity is closely related to brain oscillations, bringing the brain to a state of lower frequencies of brain waves, those most prevalent in early childhood, can affect its ability to reorganise. In addition to tracking early development, slow brain waves, which include alpha, theta, and delta waves, have been shown to affect the production of specific neurotransmitters and hormones (Patterson & Capel 1983). ”For example, a 10 Hertz signal boosts serotonin production and turnover rates“ reports Kennerly (1994). Also, hormones and neuropeptides associated with lower brain wave frequencies affect memory, creativity, and learning abilities. Vukić (2014) states ”.
Science has discovered that people involved with music and the Arts typically have superior long-term memory abilities, and they are often more capable of faster neural responses in brain areas related to decision-making. A person can also train their brains to that higher level of superiority related to memory abilities by studying and conditioning the brain to that state. Our brains are wired for art and our bodies understand that before even our consciousness.
To make sense of difficult science, Michael Kofi Esson, a second-year student at the Medical College of Wisconsin, often turns to art.
When he's struggling to understand the immune system or a rare disease, music and poetry serve as an anchor. And he further explains:
"It helps calm me down and actively choose what to focus on," says Esson, who was also born in Ghana, and believes his brain is better at absorbing all that science because of the years he spent playing the trumpet and studying Afrobeat musicians like Fela Kuti (https://www.npr.org/2008/10/05/95187083/fela-celebrates-the-father-of-afrobeat).
"There has to be some kind of greater connectivity that (music, as art )imparts on the brain," Esson says. And it has.
Studies have shown that Students with access to art education are five times less likely to drop out of school and four times more likely to be recognised for academic achievement and 3 times more likely to be awarded for school attendance. The research demonstrated a direct and powerful relationship between arts education and dropout prevention, and Students who discover academic interests, stay put keeping up with school and learning, following up to high school and college are much better prepared for satisfying any professional careers later in life.
Because of its effects in the brain, music affects our immune system and work flow. But it is discovering what music does to our own brains individually that helps us to unfold a great number of techniques to be put in practice so we can lead into living a better and more productive and fulfilling life. The scientific link between music and productivity isn’t simple. There are many researches and studies that shows how music affects productivity, by affecting specific areas of our brains.
Music Puts our bodies in a Good Mood because it stimulates the brain
One of the best ways music can help boost productivity is by putting you and your family, including co-workers in a better mood. Mass brain stimuli. A study published in Trends in Cognitive Science (http://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/abstract/S1364-6613(13)00049-1) found that music does better at combating stress and anxiety than actual anti-anxiety medication. Patients in the study who were about to undergo surgery were either given an anti-anxiety medicine or told to listen to music. At the end of the study, the participants who listened to music had lower tracked levels of the stress-induced hormone cortisol. Higher levels of cortisol, a hormone released by the brain in response to stress, are linked to impaired memory and even brain shrinkage in healthy adults in their late 40s. Stress that’s not well managed or excessive (https://www.today.com/money/study-says-workplace-stress-bad-secondhand-smoke-tips-how-cope-t43156) is detrimental to brain health in the long term, said Dr. Pierre Fayad, medical director of the Nebraska Stroke Center and a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.
Any type of stress will boost cortisol levels in a person’s body, which is a natural response, It’s key in the fight-or-flight response (https://www.today.com/health/what-panic-attack-symptoms-causes-treatment-more-t132084) humans have used to survive dangerous encounters with predators for centuries. Everything should return to normal once the threat has passed, but if the stressors of modern life — like work, home, traffic, bills, care giving, social media, family troubles, phones, bosses — never go away, the cortisol stays high.
Over time, this can put a person at risk for health problems including high blood pressure (https://www.today.com/health/how-lower-blood-pressure-hypertension-without-medication-t133845), heart disease, obesity and depression.
“Stress is an entity or condition that is difficult to define or diagnose,” Fayad said. “Everyone responds to stress differently. There are some people who cannot live without stress, while others are paralyzed from minimal challenges.”
For good health, it's key is to find what works for you.
Music is effective for relaxation and stress management.
Research confirms these personal experiences with music. Current findings indicate that music around 60 beats per minute can cause the brain to synchronise with the beat causing alpha brainwaves (frequencies from 8 - 14 hertz or cycles per second). This alpha brainwave is what is present when we are relaxed and conscious. To induce sleep (a delta brainwave of 5 hertz), a person may need to devote at least 45 minutes, in a relaxed position, listening to calming music. Researchers at Stanford University (https://news.stanford.edu/news/2006/may31/brainwave-053106.html) have said that "listening to music seems to be able to change brain functioning to the same extent as medication." They noted that music is something that almost anybody can access and makes it an easy stress reduction tool. Music is personal, and you have to do the homework for yourself and your little ones if you have family to take the full benefit of it (but rest assured we did a small playlist to give us all a heads-up).
How can we choose the relaxation music that is best for us? The answer as you know, rests with you: You must first like the music being played, and then it must relaxes you (you will feel it). Create a playlist, try to introduce yourself into new sounds and observe how do you feel afterwards. We often speak about connecting our devices to our own needs with other devices, but in truth what we need first and foremost is to connect ourselves with our own inner self needs. From there you can observe, study, care and growth not only your own playlist but to connect with your innerself, productivity, memory and mental health. It’s an important exercise that will bring you much responsive positive results than any other medication that do not naturally will keep you tuned with the other parts of your body and mind. One of the secrets of great brain function is to connect with your body and engage to bring positive and health effects from it to the rest of your body, not to partially disconnect from other health abilities within your own brain and body. Keep yourself in tune and aware of your behavioural system. It tells a lot about you, more than words can say. And music can help you with connection, treatment and recovery. For the little ones too, can make wonders.
The notion that music can influence your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours probably does not come as much of a surprise. If you've ever felt pumped up while listening to your own favourite fast-paced anthem or been moved to tears by a tender live performance, then you easily understand the power of music to impact moods and even inspire action.
The psychological effects of music can be powerful and wide-ranging. Music therapy (https://www.verywellmind.com/benefits-of-music-therapy-89829) is an intervention sometimes used to promote emotional health, help patients cope with stress, and boost psychological well-being. Some research even suggests that your taste in music can provide insight into different aspects of your personality (https://www.verywellmind.com/music-and-personality-2795424).
Listening to music can be an effective way to cope with stress.
In one 2013 study, participants took part in one of three conditions before being exposed to a stressor and then taking a psychosocial stress test. Some participants listened to relaxing music, others listened to the sound of rippling water, and the rest received no auditory stimulation.
The results suggested that listening to music had an impact on the human stress response (https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-stress-response-3145148), particularly the autonomic nervous system (https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-autonomic-nervous-system-2794823). Those who had listened to music tended to recover more quickly following a stressor. A 2015 review of research on the effects of music on pain management found that patients who listened to music before, during, or even after surgery experienced less pain and anxiety than those who did not listen to music.
Researchers have also found that music therapy can be a safe and effective treatment for a variety of disorders, including depression (https://www.verywellmind.com/top-depression-symptoms-1066910).
One study found that music therapy was a safe, low-risk way to reduce depression and anxiety in patients suffering from neurological conditions such as dementia, stroke, and Parkinson's disease.
While music can certainly have an impact on mood, the type of music is also important. Classical and meditation music offer the greatest mood-boosting benefits, while heavy metal and techno music are ineffective and even detrimental.
Alfredo Raglio, MT, PhD, Department of Public Health, Experimental and Forensic Medicine, University of Pavia, Italy wrote on 26, September 2014:
“Mood disorder and depressive syndromes represent a common comorbity condition in neurological disorders with a prevalence rate that ranges between 20% and 50% of patients with stroke, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease. Notwithstanding, these conditions are often under-diagnosed and under-treated in the clinical practice and negatively affect the functional recovery, the adherence to treatment, the quality of life, and even the mortality risk. In addition, a bidirectional association between depression and neurological disorders may be possible being that depressive syndromes may be considered as a risk factor for certain neurological diseases. Despite the large amount of evidence regarding the effects of music therapy (MT) and other musical interventions on different aspects of neurological disorders, no updated article reviewing outcomes such as mood, emotions, depression, activity of daily living and so on is actually available; for this reason, little is known about the effectiveness of music and MT on these important outcomes in neurological patients. The aim of this article is to provide a narrative review of the current literature on musical interventions and their effects on mood and depression in patients with neurological disorders. Searching on PubMed and PsycInfo databases, 25 studies corresponding to the inclusion criteria have been selected; 11 of them assess the effects of music or MT in Dementia, 9 explore the efficacy on patients with Stroke, and 5 regard other neurological diseases like Multiple Sclerosis, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis/motor neuron disease, Chronic quadriplegia, Parkinson’s Disease, and Acquired Brain dysfunctions. Selected studies are based on relational and rehabilitative music therapy approaches or concern music listening interventions. Most of the studies support the efficacy of MT and other musical interventions on mood, depressive syndromes, and quality of life on neurological patients.“
“In last decades, a growing body of evidence in the use of musical intervention in clinical setting have been seen, concerning singing, music listening, musical improvisation, and other musical activities, as long as more structured music therapy (MT) treatments. (…)
Rehabilitative approaches, such as Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT)[42] refer to neuroscientific models and use primarily the potential of musical stimuli to activate perception and production areas in the human brain, providing a series of therapeutic applications to sensory, cognitive, and motor dysfunctions resulting from neurological disorders. Using directive approach based on a series of exercises, NMT may be used, for example, to improve gait and movements in post-stroke and PD patients[43-47] and language in persons with aphasia[48,49].
On the other hand, simple music listening interventions don’t require neither a specifically trained therapist nor a direct therapeutic relationship with the patient being that beneficial effects are induced by the content of the musical stimuli and by the activity of listening itself. For these reasons, this practice is sometimes defined with the term “Music Medicine” rather than “MT”[41,50,51]. Notwithstanding, listening interventions seem to be quite common in clinical literature, usually based on self-selected or other-selected music proposed individually[52,53] or in group, as in the case of background music[54,55].
As far as regard neurological disorders, MT may promote functional recovery and also improve social and psychological outcomes such as socialisation, motivation, mood, and depression. Literature in this field shows that most of the musical interventions are currently used in clinical practice, being that the majority of the interventions are based on a combination of rehabilitative and relational techniques. Also music listening seems to be a common practice in neurological rehabilitation. Due to the possible side effects of pharmacological treatment of depressive syndromes following neurological disease, music and MT may represent a valid support in reducing depressive symptoms, improving mood and adherence to treatment while contributing to the functional recovery at the same time.“
In the last few decades, the development of neuroscience demonstrated that the brain isn't a static structure only influenced by genetic determinants but it is a plastic organ that continuously reorganises synaptic connections under the influence of inner and outer factors such as genetic programs, environmental stimulation, learning and expertise[85-87].
Neurological illnesses that provoke behavioural disturbances might originate from both endogenous and external causal factors thus determining, depending on the circumstances, a more “structural” or a more “environmental” ethiology. The mutual interaction between these factors occurs in the brain and gives rise to a variety of psychiatric disorders that can be distributed upon a continuum, on one end of which are behavioural disturbances clearly linked to neuro-anatomic and neurochemical alterations while on the opposite those more associated to the environment.
Synaptic functions and neuro-anatomic structures are proper “organic” factors that determine those alterations that are usually treated by neuropsychiatry and biological psychiatry. Behavioural disorders resulting from these factors include psychiatric syndromes that are linked to alterations of the neural transmission caused by receptor’s abnormalities and by modifications of the synaptic concentrations of one or more neurotransmitters. Given that neurotransmitters regulate the neural impulse transmission processes into neurotransmitter systems, with a widespread projection in the brain, the whole emotional, motivational, and affective state of the person will be altered.
External causal factors related to the environment may promote and characterise those behavioural disorders that are commonly counted accordingly to a bio-psychosocial model and interfere with the cognitive and emotional state of the person thus inducing an important change in the quality of the inter-individual relationships. These disorders may be considered as a reaction to the physical disability and the psycho-social difficulties produced by the disease but also as an adjustment disorder if we consider the impact of the diagnosis on patient’s life, or the weight of a chronic illness and all the other factors that may affect patient’s quality of life.
Depressive syndromes in chronic neurological illness are common and disabling. Their etiology is complex and may be multifactorial. Good history taking and detailed examination of physical and mental state (including cognitive function) will usually reveal the diagnosis and the formulation
Providing a correct diagnosis of an emotional disorder and starting an appropriate treatment may help physicians to increases in function and quality of life of their neurological patients.
The current review showed how MT and musical interventions can improve mood and psychological well-being in neurological patients. These clinical results are in accordance with the literature that highlights the effects that music listening and music making have on brain structures of emotion regulation[36], on various neuro-chemical systems, and on neural plasticity. However, the strength of this review’s findings is limited due to a generally poor methodological quality of the studies and the restricted size of samples. Moreover, the heterogeneity of the outcomes prevented any meta-analysis. Notwithstanding, the analysis of the 25 RCTs or CCTs included in this work points out a positive effect of interventions with music on psychosocial outcomes such as mood, depression, and quality of life when compared to standard care or other treatments.
Conclusion: Music-based activities can represent a valid and without side effects intervention for reducing psychological and behavioural disturbances related to neurological disorders and also for promoting the functional recovery. Specifically, the most significant results of the music interventions on the psychological side can be identified in the aspects more closely related to mood, especially in the reduction of the depressive and anxiety's component, and in the improvement of the emotional expression, communication and interpersonal skills, self esteem and quality of life. As revealed in advance, the efficacy of music and MT interventions could be explained by different points of view. From the neurochemistry point of view we know that music can activate limbic and paralimbic structures, such as the amygdala, the hippocampus, the nucleus accumbens, etc. that function abnormally in patients with a high depressive component. At the psychological
level music can engage several social functions, can increase communication and social cohesion and can promote empathetic relationships, especially in the active MT approaches. Finally, from the rehabilitative point of view, making music can involve and influence motor areas functioning and regulation. This effect appears to be connected to the pleasure and thereby can positively affect the mood and consequently the rehabilitative process.
In conclusion, a more methodological rigour and a clearer definition of music approaches are needed to improve the quality of MT research and to focus on the specific role of music-based interventions in psychological symptoms in the field of neurology.
Got a music stream app? Create a playlist, and share with your family and friends. If your playlist helps your immune system to recharge and engage into positivity, wealth and health. It might save others lives too (quite literally, it's a brain 'thing'):