Music and Dementia
Scientist Explains with Veronica Vuong
January 30, 2023
How does music affect the brain?
Music is a special art form; it exists across all cultures. When people engage with music, it activates nearly all brain regions and networks, which helps to keep important brain pathways strong. This includes pathways and networks that are involved in movement, emotion, and memory. As a result, this can have positive impacts on one’s well-being and quality of life.
Benefits of music for people living with dementia?
Humans have around 100 billion brain cells, which are called neurons. Neurons talk to each other and form the pathways needed for thinking and memory. Dementia causes damage to these neurons, which interferes with their ability to communicate with each other. Building musical networks provides alternate brain pathways for people living with dementia, which is beneficial for cognition. Engaging in music has also been shown to improve mood and decrease anxiety in people living with dementia, which in some studies has led to decreased medication use.
A music-based intervention that is growing in popularity is music listening. Importantly, the benefits derived from music listening are linked to the familiarity of the music. It should be personalized; this is because for every individual, specific songs can trigger a memory of a person, place, experience, or time period in life. This can be leveraged to improve cognition through tapping into memory networks that are already intact.
This was shown in two recent music listening studies conducted by Dr. Michael Thaut at the University of Toronto, and Dr. Corinne Fischer at St. Michael’s Hospital. Over a three-week period, people living with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and early Alzheimer’s disease listened to 60 minutes of music per day (min 5 days/week, up to 7days/week). Researchers observed structural and functional brain changes in participants, which correlated with improved scores on standardized cognitive tests like the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA).
What’s happening in research? Next steps?
Building on the two studies above, Veronica is running a new music listening study that aims to determine if similar positive results can be achieved using shorter listening periods (20 min/day, minimum 5 days/week, up to 7 days/week, for 2 weeks). In addition to people living with MCI, this study will also include healthy controls, and will incorporate electroencephalogram (EEG) testing, which measures electrical activity in the brain. This will allow researchers to gain a different perspective of what is happening in the brain, and together with the results from the previous studies, will provide a better understanding of the impact of music listening to improve cognition. This research study is being supported by the Alzheimer Society.
