Music Changing the Brain and Improving Livelihoods

Music Changing the Brain and Improving Livelihoods Pexels Personally, I am not that much of a rap fan fanatic, from the performer unvarying his or her vocal range to the difficulty in dancing to the song; certainly, there is the classic jumping up and down and mouthing some of the words to make it appear as if we understand what the artist is singing. In retrospect, though, is it easier to memorize a song, say by Chance the Rapper, or one performed by Maroon 5 or Bruno Mars? While it is more common to sing “Sugar” in its entirety, Chance the Rapper’s “No Problem” is also scientifically proven to involve a little more time as the lyrics are spoken quicker, with a lower chance of interpreting his message and storing it as long-term memory. However, despite the extra time in memorizing the work and the genre being lower on the totem pole for me (along with country music), I acknowledge it as an undeniable method to express emotions. Throughout Chance’s songs, he elucidates his battle against drug abuse in an attempt for an upward climb and totality of mental health stability. Thinking back to last semester especially, I can honestly describe music as a mental-health stabilizing agent on a different level, though, from Chance the Rapper. While I am not depressed, anxious, or affected by a drug addiction, it was difficult for me question my major (whether it be that of sticking with engineering or switching in its entirety). Add on the imbalance with coverage of math and science, and little of the fine arts within the curriculum, and I started craving a different media, a different release than that of strictly pen to paper calculations. I started playing piano in first grade through freshman year of high school and revisited it my sophomore year of college when I was substantially stressed. After trying to get back into it, I desired it more and would play for sometimes two to three hours a night in a fine arts hall, while listening to Elton John, Journey, and Goo Goo Dolls on my own time or while studying. Though not often portrayed as the classified term of “neuro-rhythm music therapy,” playing an instrument and listening to music encompasses positive mental health benefits, ranging from it activating the pleasure-reward system of the brain, priming it, and managing effects of post-operative pain. Simply put, music is good for us, but how do we determine what is pleasurable for each of us specifically, whether it encompasses rock, punk, and metal, or rap and country? Per the journal, Science, patterns in brain activity indicate whether we like what we are listening to. A researcher at Rotman Research Institute in Toronto and former Levitin student Valorie Salimpoor conducted a study in which participants “listened to 60 excerpts of music they had never heard before while in a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine.” After asking the 19 participants how much money they would spend on a given song while listening to the excerpts, researchers analyzed the subjects’ brain patterns, specifically honing in on the nucleus accumbens and superior temporal gyrus. While the latter structure is involved in the experience of music, its connection to the nucleus accumbens is pertinent as genres of music in which a person listens to over a lifetime impact how the superior temporal gyrus is formed. The superior temporal gyrus is not linked with predicting whether a person will enjoy a given piece of music; rather, it involves storing templates from what has been heard before. (A person who has frequently listened to rap will appreciate its genre to an elevated degree than an individual who has less experience listening to the genre.) In the words of Salimpoor, “The brain kind of works like a music recommendation system.” The brain indicates what is considered valuable for one’s survival music is strongly associated with its reward system. While it doesn’t fit the “food, water, sex” existence continuum, professor of neurology and neurosurgery at Montreal Neurological Institute Robert Zatorre indicated that the striatum releases the chemical dopamine in response to pleasure-related stimuli. When the music is transmitted to someone’s brain and registers, it triggers the release of dopamine specifically the ventral striatum releases dopamine when a person is experiencing peak pleasure. According to CNN, what is interesting, however, is that dopamine is released from a differing area of the brain, the dorsal striatum, “about 10 to 15 seconds before the moment of peak pleasure.” Zatorre explains that while one is anticipating a moment of pleasure, he or she “is making predictions about what is [being heard] and what [one] is about to hear. Part of the pleasure we derive from it is being able to make predictions.” With this strong dopamine rush from music, it could be comparable to that of methamphetamines. In babies, the “Mozart Effect” has been a booming term among first-time parents as they read Women’s Health, Parenting, or the Working Mother magazine publications, hinting that playing classical music while pregnant can seemingly make the son or daughter “smarter.” However, there are few studies which support this claim; rather, music primes the brain’s various mindsets. According to University of Georgia’s Associate Professor and Extension Human Development Specialist Dr. Diane Bales in her article “The Role of Music,” people who listen to music perform certain special tasks quickly, such as fitting a puzzle together. How does this occur, though? As reported by Bales, “The classical music pathways in our brain are similar to the pathways we use for spatial reasoning.” When we listen to classical music, these spatial pathways are flipped on and ready to be utilized. Our improved spatial skills fade within about an hour after listening to music, but learning to play an instrument has been proven to exhibit longer-lasting effects on dimensional reasoning. The critical period of a baby is pivotal as he or she is developing new connections with other neurons to prepare for solidification of the brain. Playing music, singing to the child, and even starting him or her out in lessons can enhance this creativity and spatial awareness which is more often than not bypassed. Extend the immediate immersion of music in children into long-term ramifications: that of reduced stress and anxiety, decreased pain, and improved immune functioning. As written by Jill Suttie in the Huffington Post’s article “5 Ways Music Improves Our Health,” she brings to light a study in which researchers discovered that patients receiving surgery for hernia repair and who listened to music after surgery “experienced decreased plasma cortisol levels and required significantly less morphine to manage their pain.” A similar surgery expounded upon this stress and pain reduction correlation as stress-reducing effects of music were more powerful than that of orally-administered anxiolytic drugs for surgery patients. Test after test was performed as Suttie clarifies that 60 people diagnosed with anything from fibromyalgia to undergoing spinal surgery experienced significant reductions in their pain and fewer depressive symptoms hardly a placebo effect as a 2014 randomized control trial was conducted which involved healthy subjects exposed to painful stimuli. The result: a failed linkage between expectation and music’s effects on pain. This leads me to my final point: music as preventing disease. You’re probably thinking ‘If I have the flu, listening to music will not magically make me well.’ You are certainly correct regarding this standpoint. However, Wilkes University researchers conducted a study involving the levels of IgA, an important antibody for our immune system’s first line of defense against disease. After undergraduate students had their salivary IgA levels tested preceding and following a half-hour exposure to either a tone click, radio broadcast, tape of soothing music, or silence, those who listened to the music exhibited predominately increased levels of IgA than their counterparts. A similar study from Massachusetts General Hospital found that patients had lower stress hormone levels when listening to Mozart’s piano sonatas as a relaxation mechanism. An instrument of self-expression or rather a release from reality, embracing music in its entirety has salvaged people from silence. I often note that when I am not feeling like myself or had a rough day, listening to my favorite band, or sneaking into the piano room at SLU for hours on end enables me to express what I could not put into words on paper or to another person maybe I could not formulate the verbiage, or maybe there were simply no words to be said, but just emotions building which could not be paired with the correct form of verbal expression. I could care less if you have a different taste in music than me; I previously mentioned I did not enjoy listening to rap, but if you find comfort in its genre, I encourage you to cling to it. No one will ever be able to take your own expression away from you.