Music On Repeat Mode may Improve Brain Cognition

Listening to personally meaningful music may help improve beneficial brain plasticity and cognitive performance in mild cognitively impaired or early Alzheimer’s disease patients.

Listening to your favorite music repeatedly may help improve beneficial brain plasticity, and cognitive performance of mild cognitively impaired or early Alzheimer’s disease patients, as per a landmark multi-modal study at the University of Toronto (U of T) and Unity Health Toronto, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Personalized, music-based interventions for people with dementia have supporting clinical potential as evident from increased memory performance on neuropsychological tests.

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‘Listening to personally meaningful music may help improve beneficial brain plasticity and cognitive performance in mild cognitively impaired or early Alzheimer’s disease patients. ’

“We have new brain-based evidence that autobiographically salient music—that is, music that holds special meaning for a person, like the song they danced to at their wedding—stimulates neural connectivity in ways that help maintain higher levels of functioning. Typically, it’s very difficult to show positive brain changes in Alzheimer’s patients,” says Dr. Michael Thaut, senior author of the study, director of the Music and Health Science Research Collaboratory, Tier One Canada Research Chair in Music, Neuroscience and Health, and professor at U of T’s Faculty of Music and Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

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The study was done on 14 participants (8 non-musicians and 6 musicians) who were allowed to listen to long-known music for one hour a day over three weeks to explore the effects of music on brain health.

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The participants underwent functional MRI before and after the listening period to determine changes to brain function and structure.

It was stated that music contributed to structural and functional changes in neural pathways especially the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of study participants. PFC is the brain’s control center where deep cognitive processes occur.

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Further differences to music were also observed in the brain’s connections and white matter, thereby adding to the evidence of neuroplasticity.

“Music-based interventions may be a feasible, cost-effective and readily accessible intervention for those in early-stage cognitive decline. Existing treatments for Alzheimer’s disease have shown limited benefit to date. While larger controlled studies are required to confirm clinical benefits, our findings show that an individualized and home-based approach to music-listening may be beneficial and have lasting effects on the brain,” says Dr. Corinne Fischer, lead author, director of Geriatric Psychiatry at St. Michael’s Hospital of Unity Health Toronto and associate professor at U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

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Source-Medindia