What Effect Does Music Have on the Brain?

Post by Amanda McFarlan

Music and the brain

Listening to music can be very visceral - it can evoke strong emotions, trigger memories and modulate physiological responses in the body. For example, songs with an upbeat tempo and major chords can evoke feelings of cheerfulness, while songs with a slower tempo using minor chords can evoke feelings of sadness. Learning to play music, especially from a young age, has been shown to have positive benefits that extend beyond enhanced musical abilities. Here, we will discuss how musical training as well as listening to music changes the brain.

What happens to our brain when we play music?

Playing a musical instrument is a complex task requiring coordinated use of multiple brain areas. Consider playing the guitar: The motor cortex and basal ganglia control the synchronized movements in the right and left hands for strumming and fingering. Meanwhile, feedback from the somatosensory cortex about hand, finger, and body positioning is relayed to brain areas like the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex for continuous modulation of movements. The auditory cortex analyzes the sounds being produced so play can be adjusted if necessary. If the musician is following a musical score, the visual system reads and interprets the musical symbols on the page. 

With such complex integration of nearly all sensory systems and higher-order cognitive processing in the brain, it is reasonable to think that playing a musical instrument might lead to changes in brain plasticity. Indeed, it has been shown that compared to non-musicians, musicians have larger brain volumes in areas involved in auditory and visuo-spatial processing, motor control and feedback integration. Studies have also demonstrated differences in how musicians vs. non-musicians process sounds — both for simple tones or complex melodies. For example, one study found that musicians had stronger cortical activation when they were presented with piano tones compared to pure tones, and that this activation was related to the age at which the individual began practicing their instrument. A different study found that auditory cortical representations in highly trained musicians are enhanced for musical timbres that are associated with their principal instrument, but not for musical timbres associated with other instruments. Musicians are also known to have enhanced abilities for musical imagery. In one study, participants were presented with the beginning of familiar melodies and were asked to imagine the melody. They were then presented with a tone and had to decide whether or not it was the next tone in the melody. Musicians were better at identifying whether the presented tone was correct compared to non-musicians. Thus, musical training may lead to a superior ability for musical imagery.

Considering the overlap between cortical networks for music and language, researchers have hypothesized that the two may be related. Research shows that musical training can have beneficial effects on language processing and in particular, in the discrimination of pitch. Musicians have a more robust neural representation of pitch contours compared to non-musicians. This increased ability was associated with the number of years of training, suggesting that years of experience may lead to better pitch discrimination.

What happens to our brain when we listen to music?

Not everyone plays a musical instrument, but nearly everyone listens to music. Just like playing an instrument, listening to music requires the activation of many brain areas, like the auditory cortex to discern and analyze pitches, timbres, rhythms, etc. in the music. Listening to music also recruits high-order brain areas involved in emotions, memory and attention. Indeed, listening to music can influence mood and arousal and evoke strong emotional responses including joy, sadness or tranquility. 

Unlike other rewarding stimuli like food or drugs of abuse, music does not have an obvious benefit for survival, nor addictive properties. However, music has been reported to produce very strong feelings of euphoria for the listener in some cases, commonly described as ‘chills down the spine’. Brain imaging studies have shown that listening to ‘chills down the spine’ music compared to neutral music results in increased cerebral blood flow to reward-related brain areas (e.g. the ventral striatum). The nucleus accumbens (also implicated in reward) was also found to be activated while listening to unfamiliar joyful music compared to silence and singing compared to speech. In line with these findings, positron emission tomography (PET) imaging studies have shown that dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens occurs during passages of music that induce ‘chills down the spine’.

In addition to having a rewarding effect and regulating mood, listening to music can affect arousal. Studies have shown that listening to relaxing music (slow tempo, low pitch and no lyrics) can reduce stress and anxiety brought on by an invasive medical procedure. Furthermore, music therapy that uses relaxation techniques and classical music was shown to reduce stress-related hormones and the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, responsible for the body’s stress response. The brainstem is thought to play an important role in changes in arousal while listening to music. One hypothesis to explain how music regulates stress and arousal is via the initiation of reflexive responses in the brainstem, which mediates heart rate, pulse, blood pressure, and body temperature. Listening to fast, upbeat music can cause an increase in these vital signs, while slow, relaxing music can decrease them.  

How does music affect the developing brain?

A large body of research demonstrates the benefits of exposing children to music at a young age. As discussed in the previous sections, playing music involves the recruitment of many different areas of the brain. One study showed that school-age children who received 15 months of musical training had increased grey matter density compared to age-matched children who did not receive musical training. Similarly, an MRI study revealed differences in macro and microscopic brain structure, including the maturation of cortical thickness in the temporal lobe, in students in a music program, but not those in a sports program. Research has shown that musical training in young children benefits speech. For example, rhythmic training can have a positive effect on both phonological processing and reading. One study in 9-month old babies revealed that babies who participated in a 12-session music program were better able to identify violations in music and speech versus a control group. Another study in young children found that those who received music (versus painting) instruction demonstrated stronger reading and pitch discrimination. Finally, musical training can also impact math skills. Students with low mathematics achievement improve in number production (reading, writing and counting numbers) after participating in non-instrumental musical training classes. All together, these findings suggest that musical training in young children can have beneficial effects that extend beyond enhanced musical abilities.

How can music help heal us?

The effects of music on mood and arousal make it a useful tool to improve well-being. Music therapy is a type of treatment whereby trained professionals administer music-based interventions, modulating attention, emotion, cognition, behaviour and communication. For example, listening to or playing music can be a useful distraction from negative sensations such as pain, anxiety, or sadness. Music-based interventions have been shown to decrease anxiety, perceived pain and depression symptoms in cancer patients. Therapeutic approaches using music can be helpful for the treatment of disorders such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder, which are known to be associated with limbic system abnormalities. Further, music therapy can also have therapeutic effects in neurological disorders like stroke and Alzheimer’s disease. Music is a natural way to improve mood and well-being and is a promising tool for a wide variety of diseases or conditions. A greater understanding of the neurochemical effects of music is developing, however, more research is needed to understand the full potential of music therapy.

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