by Dalia Fleifel
Music as a language of feeling
The Super Bowl 2022 Halftime Show instantly sent millennials on a huge nostalgia trip when songs from the late 1990s and 2000s were featured. People started reminiscing about their childhood days and old feelings. How could musical rhythms and lyrics bring back vivid memories and stimulate emotions with such detail and truth that language cannot explain?
Scientists have indeed proven that different brain regions process the music you listen to in different ways. Your left-brain hemisphere interprets lyrics, while your right-brain hemisphere interprets music and sounds. Traditional neurology has mainly focused on the role of the left hemisphere in language interpretation which is easier to measure compared to the emotional experience of words. Moreover, current neuroscience falls short at interpreting musical works which can provoke opposite emotions in different people or even the same person in different situations. Langer explains that “the real stimulus is not the progressive unfolding of the musical structure but the subjective content of the listener’s mind.” A song that once triggered feelings of joy in special family gatherings can instead provoke feelings of homesickness and nostalgia when you travel away from family. This is hard to explain with empirical techniques, but it hints at unique ways by which music influences how your brain works.
Music influences the biological functions of healthy brains.
Scientists have discovered that the amygdala, the brain region that stimulates and processes emotions such as fear, anger and happiness, also gets activated when you listen to music. Remember a song that brings shivers down your spine? That shiver is the result of your amygdala getting activated! Another area of the brain is the hippocampus where memories are produced and retrieved. Scientists have discovered that music can increase the production and connections between new neurons (brain cells) in the hippocampus, and thus improve memory (see image). These anatomical brain changes linked with music suggest that music can functionally improve damaged brains, which brings us to the concept of “music therapy.”
Music therapy as an evidence-based treatment for brain disorders
Music therapy is a technique used by therapists to help patients with brain disorders enhance their physical and mental health. Music therapy is especially indicated when patients struggle with verbal communication because music serves as a non-verbal way of expressing and processing emotions. Thus, patients with dementia, speaking disabilities, or acquired brain injuries that affect speech, can benefit from music therapy. Since language functions are in the left brain but music is on the right brain, if brain damage occurs that stops speech, the brain can be rewired and trained to associate music with language and thus rely more on its right side. Also, patients with strokes and brain injury can recover certain movements and their sense of balance by synchronizing their motor function with rhythms of music. In this method of therapy, rhythms and beats are used as auditory cues by the brain to coordinate body movements. Interestingly, numerous studies have proven that children living with autism spectrum disorder improved with regards to social interaction and communication with others when they went through music therapy sessions. Also, learning an instrument as a new hobby can help these children cope with difficult social situations and improve their mental health. Accordingly, music therapy could serve as an excellent non-invasive health intervention for victims of brain damage and patients suffering from communication problems. We are just beginning to reveal the role music plays in lighting up our brains!
