17 Excellent Studies About Music, The Brain, and Your Health

For years, nurses and other health care professionals have known that music has positive effects on the brain. Indeed, the complexities of music are thought to stimulate brain function. On top of that, there also seems to be an effect of music on health. Some health care professionals note that music therapy can help in a variety of ways, leading to increased chances of recovery.

You can see for yourself that music can be a boon to many. Music can help make you smarter and keep your brain functioning, and it can also be a positive influence on your health. Here are 17 studies about music, the brain and your health:

Music and the Brain

There is a connection between music and the brain, and it is one that shows enhanced brain function. Music can help the brain develop better in children, as well as help reduce memory loss in older adults. The way you interact with music is part of your brain structure. Here are some studies about how music affects the brain.

  1. Music, the brain and Ravel: A look at how the functional cerebral structures in the brain react with music. An attempt to see how it all works with the subjective nature of musical enjoyment.
  2. Analysis of music-brain interaction with simultaneous measurement of regional cerebral blood flow and electroencephalogram beta rhythm in human subjects: This study looks at how music can actually affect blood flow in human brains. An interesting look at the way blood moves through the brain system in response to music and musical rhythms.
  3. Emotional responses to pleasant and unpleasant music correlate with activity in paralimbic brain regions: Your emotional responses can also be determined by music, and it can be seen by which regions of the brain show activity when listening to the music. Shows results of brain scans taken while subjects were listening to music.
  4. Language, music, syntax and the brain: A look at how music affects the language centers in the brain, and how music can help the brain organize information. A look at the specific point at which syntactic processing between music and language converges. An interesting look at how language and music are connected in the brain, and how the two functions develop.
  5. Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain implicated in reward and emotion: A look at how listening to music connects with reward centers in the brain. Exploration of the mechanics involved in listening to pleasurable music. An interesting consideration of how you can receive pleasure signals in the brain from listening to music, and how it could affect your desire to listen to more music.
  6. Brain Organization for Music Processing: Considers how the brain is organized to process music, and how it impacts memory, perception, performance and emotion. An interesting look at music’s influence on a number of brain processes.
  7. Music and emotion: perceptual determinants, immediacy, and isolation after brain damage: Considers music and its effects on those with brain damage. Also considers how music is processed in the brain after damage has been done. A look at the differences between health brain processing and damaged brain processing when it comes to music.
  8. Music, Mind, and Brain: The Neuropsychology of Music: Addresses how the mind processes music, and how the brain responds to music. An interesting look at music’s effect on neuropsychology, and the implications of music on the brain and the mind.
  9. Music Lessons Enhance IQ: An interesting study that measured the IQ of students before and after music lessons, and compared them to a control group. The study found that IQ increased after music lessons. An interesting look at how music can help make children smarter.
  10. Working Memory in Music: A Theoretical Model: Explores the idea that music can help improve memory. With the help of music, it is possible to improve memory function. Implications that those with memory problems can stave off memory loss. After reading this, you will want to make music part of your memory retention regime.

Music and Health

Music therapy can be helpful for your health, reducing stress and providing other positive outcomes. Music can actually help regulate physical functions in your body, such as heart rate and breathing. Read these studies about how music can impact your health.

  1. Music and Health: This study looks at the link between music and health, and how health can be impacted — positively — by music. Considers the idea that music can be used for enhanced health.
  2. Reducing noise pollution in the hospital setting by establishing a department of sound: A survey of recent research on the effects of noise and music in health care: An interesting look at how the right sounds in a hospital can aid in healing. Looks at music therapy, and how music can help cancel out unhealthy noise pollution.
  3. Music for health: Notes that music was used as part of healing in ancient times, and that many are now discovering its benefits now. Music can provide health benefits, and can lead to better health outcomes.
  4. Music Listening as a Nursing Intervention: A Symphony of Practice: This study considers the healthful effects that background music can have when it comes to relieving stress. The right kind of music in the background can lead to less anxiety, helping manage heart rhythms, respiration and pacing.
  5. Stress reduction through music in patients undergoing cerebral angiography: Shows how the stress of patients about to undergo brain surgery can be relieved to a certain degree, helping to improve outcomes.
  6. Effects of relaxation and music on postoperative pain: a review: Considers the pain response of those who have undergone operations. Provides an interesting look at how patients who listen to music have less pain, and respond better. An interesting look at how music can help improve postoperative health.
  7. A Prospective Study of Exposure to Rap Music Videos and African American Female Adolescents’ Health: Sometimes music can have a less than benign influence on health. This is an interesting look at how some kinds of music and some messages can result in less than desired health outcomes.
Posted by admin
on Aug 31, 2010

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