Can Music Help Improve Your Brain?
Do you know singing causes our brain to be more capable of processing information?
The power of music to affect our memory is quite intriguing. Most recently brain-imaging studies have shown that music activates many diverse parts of our brain, including an overlap in where the brain processes music and language. This simultaneous left and right brain action maximizes our learning and retention of information. The information we are studying activates the left brain while the music we are listening to activates the right brain. Also, activities which engage both sides of the brain at the same time, such as playing an instrument or singing, causes our brain to be more capable of processing information.
Our ear converts sound waves into movement by vibrating specific parts of the middle and inner ear. This movement is then converted into electrical signals that travel in our eighth cranial nerve to the brain. From the ear, auditory information travels first to the brain stem, then to the thalamus, and then to the auditory cortex in the temporal lobe on both sides of the brain.
Damage to the temporal lobe of our brain may cause us to have problems with singing a song, playing an instrument or keeping rhythm. Sometimes this damage causes problems related to recognizing music, but no problem with hearing speech and other sounds. This type of condition is called amusia. People with amusia have trouble recognizing melodies.
Some research has suggested that music is processed by the right cerebral hemisphere. Other research has shown that the left hemisphere is also important. Listening to music and appreciating music is a complex process that involves memory, learning and emotions. It is likely that there are multiple areas of the brain that are important for the musical experience.
In 1982, researchers from the University of North Texas performed a three-way test on postgraduate students to see if music could help in memorizing vocabulary words. The results simply showed that our learning does not absolutely guarantee recall but music can possibly improve it. Background music in itself is not a part of the learning process, but it does enter into our memory along with the information learned. Apparently, our recall is better when the same music used for learning is used during recall.
Patients with lesions on the left sides of their brains showed improvement with music therapy. Before the therapy, these stroke patients responded to questions with largely incoherent sounds and phrases. But after just a few minutes with therapists, who asked them to sing phrases and tap their hands to the rhythm, the patients could sing “Happy Birthday,” recite their addresses, and communicate if they were thirsty. The underdeveloped systems on the right side of the brain that respond to music became enhanced and changed structures. However, success varied depending on how recently a person had had a stroke and the severity of the damage. But several patients were eventually able to teach themselves new words and phrases by turning them into tunes, and few were even able to move beyond simple phrases and give short speeches.
Evidently, music is an alternative to stimulate the parts and lobes of the brain that before were not involved in any other activities of our daily lives.
Photo by ohmyGaly
