ONTARIO, May 8 ― Music seems to provoke a multitude of emotions in those who listen to it, whatever their age. A Canadian-American study recently published in the journal Network Neuroscience has investigated this phenomenon.
The researchers used music to study the brain function of older and younger individuals. They monitored the brain activity of two cohorts of participants while they listened to music: one composed of young adults with an average age of 19, the other of seniors with an average age of 67.
The academics played 24 recordings, including excerpts from well-known and easily recognisable songs, as well as songs the participants had chosen themselves. They also introduced them to melodies that had been specially designed for the purposes of the study. The volunteers had therefore never heard them before.
It turns out that the young adults' reward circuitry was activated when they listened to music they were familiar with or enjoyed. This is hardly surprising: music has been proven to be a powerful emotional trigger. The fourth art has the power to rouse emotions that lead to the production of a number of neurotransmitters, including dopamine. Research, published in 2011 in the journal Nature Neuroscience, even claims that listening to music can increase dopamine levels in the brain by 6 to 9 per cent. This is the same compound that activates the brain's reward circuit.
Music's power on the brain
Surprisingly, in seniors, the brain's reward system was found to be activated even when they listened to music that was previously unfamiliar to them, or that they said they didn't like. The researchers conclude that “music listening engages multiple brain networks that may reorganise in multiple ways as we age.”
The researchers hypothesize that older people show less differentiation between liking and familiarity when listening to a new song. “If familiarity is lower among older adults, but liking is consistent with younger adults, it is possible that older adults would engage a different network response to music that is unfamiliar but liked,” they write.
This demonstrates the power of music to activate brain chemistry at any age. “Understanding how music works in the brain is highly complex, especially given that our brains are constantly evolving with age,” says Sarah Faber, the Simon Fraser University neuroscientist who led the study, quoted in a news release. “But even when the music is not familiar to them, it still has the ability to make their body move, and to help calibrate or balance their emotions by activating those regions in the brain.”
The question now is whether music has the same effect on the brains of seniors with Alzheimer's disease or senile dementia. Sarah Faber and colleagues intend to build on the findings of their study to find out. Research in this field is still in its early days, but a better understanding of the processes involved could help improve support for people affected by cognitive decline. ― ETX Studio
