Can music alleviate cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia?

It has recently been reported that students performed relatively better on cognitive tasks after listening to music. Conceivably, music might reduce the level of arousal in subjects who are tense, thereby improving their performance. A test case would be schizophrenic subjects, noted for poor performance on tasks demanding attention, who have been characterized as suffering from hyperarousal, which mediates these attentional deficits. We investigated whether cognitive task performance could be facilitated by music in schizophrenics and report a beneficial effect.     

FMRI study relevant to the Mozart effect: brain areas involved in spatial-temporal reasoning.

Behavioral studies, motivated by columnar cortical model predictions, have given evidence for music causally enhancing spatial-temporal reasoning. A wide range of behavioral experiments showed that listening to a Mozart Sonata (K.448) gave subsequent enhancements. An EEG coherence study gave evidence for a carryover from that Mozart Sonata listening condition to the subsequent spatial-temporal task in specific cortical regions. Here we present fMRI studies comparing cortical blood flow activation by the Mozart Sonata vs. other music. In addition to expected temporal cortex activation, we report dramatic statistically significant differences in activation by the Mozart Sonata (in comparison to Beethoven's Fur Elise and 1930s piano music) in dorsolateral pre-frontal cortex, occipital cortex and cerebellum, all expected to be important for spatial-temporal reasoning. It would be of great interest to explicitly test this expectation. We propose an fMRI study comparing (subject by subject) brain areas activated in music listening conditions and in spatial-temporal tasks.     

Impaired recognition of musical emotions and facial expressions following anteromedial temporal lobe excision

We have shown that an anteromedial temporal lobe resection can impair the recognition of scary music in a prior study (Gosselin et al., 2005). In other studies ( [Adolphs et?al., 2001] and [Anderson et?al., 2000] ), similar results have been obtained with fearful facial expressions. These findings suggest that scary music and fearful faces may be processed by common cerebral structures. To assess this possibility, we tested patients with unilateral anteromedial temporal excision and normal controls in two emotional tasks. In the task of identifying musical emotion, stimuli evoked either fear, peacefulness, happiness or sadness. Participants were asked to rate to what extent each stimulus expressed these four emotions on 10-point scales. The task of facial emotion included morphed stimuli whose expression varied from faint to more pronounced and evoked fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, anger or disgust. Participants were requested to select the appropriate label. Most patients were found to be impaired in the recognition of both scary music and fearful faces. Furthermore, the results in both tasks were correlated, suggesting a multimodal representation of fear within the amygdala. However, inspection of individual results showed that recognition of fearful faces can be preserved whereas recognition of scary music can be impaired. Such a dissociation found in two cases suggests that fear recognition in faces and in music does not necessarily involve exactly the same cerebral networks and this hypothesis is discussed in light of the current literature.     

Development of a music therapy assessment tool for patients in low awareness states

People in low awareness states following profound brain injury typically demonstrate subtle changes in functional behaviors which challenge the sensitivity of measurement tools. Failure to identify and measure changes in functioning can lead to misdiagnosis and withdrawal of treatment with this population. Thus, the development of tools which are sensitive to responsiveness is of central concern. As the auditory modality has been found to be particularly sensitive in identifying responses indicating awareness, a convincing case can be made for music therapy as a treatment medium. However, little has been recommended about protocols for intervention or tools for measuring patient responses within the music therapy setting. This paper presents the rationale for an assessment tool specifically designed to measure responses in the music therapy setting with patients who are diagnosed as minimally conscious or in a vegetative state. Developed over fourteen years as part of interdisciplinary assessment and treatment, the music therapy assessment tool for low awareness states (MATLAS) contains fourteen items which rate behavioral responses across a number of domains. The tool can provide important information for interdisciplinary assessment and treatment particularly in the auditory and communication domains. Recommendations are made for testing its reliability and validity through research.     

fMRI study relevant to the Mozart effect: Brain areas involved in spatial–temporal reasoning

Abstract

Behavioral studies, motivated by columnar cortical model predictions, have given evidence for music causally enhancing spatial–temporal reasoning. A wide range of behavioral experiments showed that listening to a Mozart Sonata (K.448) gave subsequent enhancements. An EEG coherence study gave evidence for a carryover from that Mozart Sonata listening condition to the subsequent spatial–temporal task in specific cortical regions. Here we present fMRI studies comparing cortical blood flow activation by the Mozart Sonata vs. other music. In addition to expected temporal cortex activation, we report dramatic statistically significant differences in activation by the Mozart Sonata (in comparison to Beethoven's Fur Elise and 1930s piano music) in dorsolateral pre-frontal cortex, occipital cortex and cerebellum, all expected to be important for spatial–temporal reasoning. It would be of great interest to explicitly test this expectation. We propose an fMRI study comparing (subject by subject) brain areas activated in music listening conditions and in spatial–temporal tasks. [Neurol Res 2001; 23: 683-690]     

L’anhédonie musicale : des neurosciences à la psychiatrie

Music has always been part of our culture. Listening to it can convey strong and many emotions in humans. By its capacity to move us, it occupies an important value in the lives of people. There are important differences in the ability to enjoy listening to music. Some people will find music more enjoyable than others. Part of the population is unable to experience pleasure, or has lost the ability to do so. This fact is called “musical anhedonia”. Mas-Herrero et al. have developed a psychometric instrument that studies this sensitivity to musical reward; this is the “Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire”. Mas-Herrero et al. in 2014, measured the physiological responses of subjects insensitive to music. They found that these people had no changes in their heart rate, temperature or sweat levels when listening to a piece of music, as well as no subjective sensations such as a chill. They thus confirmed the existence of this musical anhedonia. It is to be distinguished from amusia, which concerns the capacities of sensory perception to music. Amusia, that is not associating with the presence of musical anhedonia, is a rare phenomenon, which appears to involve the lower right frontal gyrus and the upper and right middle temporal gyrus. It is most often the consequence of ischemic or hemorrhagic vascular injury and is more frequent and severe in the presence of an injury to the right hemisphere. Several studies highlight the existence of a musical anhedonia in healthy subjects, not depressed, in the absence of amusia, but also in the absence of a loss of pleasure to the presentation of other stimuli, such as money in particular. We speak of “specific” musical anhedonia to describe a loss of pleasure that only concerns musical stimuli. It is a rare phenomenon. There does not seem to be a relationship between a perception deficit and musical anhedonia. In 5% of people, musical anhedonia is congenital. It can also be acquired following focal brain lesions of various locations. In this case, people with it have lost their ability to enjoy listening to music, which they were likely to experience before. Musical reward appears to be processed by the connectivity that exists between the auditory cortical areas, responsible for analyzing musical content and located at the level of the superior temporal gyrus, and areas of the reward system, responsible for assigning a value, such as the nucleus accumbens (at the level of the ventral striatum), the caudate nucleus (at the level of the dorsal striatum) and the limbic system (amygdala and anterior insula). The enjoyment of listening to music varies from individual to individual on a spectrum from musical anhedonia to musicophilia. Thus, some people are more sensitive than others to the emotional stimuli generated by music. The “Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire” by Mas-Herrero et al. allows individuals to be divided into three classes according to their emotional and sensory experience of music: “anhedonic”, “hedonic” and “highly hedonic” or musicophiles. The context in which a melody is heard for the first time would be crucial. Indeed, there would be an association between a positive or negative emotional experience with music. It also appears that the same neural circuits are activated when listening to sad or happy music, resulting in dopaminergic release. Musical pleasure seems to remain intact in a wide variety of neurological disorders involving impaired cognitive functions, such as Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal dementia and even Parkinson's disease. Anhedonia is one of the psychopathological features present in many mental disorders such as major depression and schizophrenia. Although anhedonia is a major symptom of depression, the literature on the subject has not yet established the link between musical anhedonia and depression. When it comes to schizophrenia, anhedonia can be considered a negative symptom of the disease. To date, we have not found any studies linking depression and loss of pleasure specific to music.     

Listening to music during electromyography does not influence the examinee's anxiety and pain levels

Introduction: Listening to music is a low‐cost intervention that has demonstrated ability to reduce pain and anxiety levels in various medical procedures. Methods: Subjects undergoing electrophysiological examinations were randomized into a music‐listening group and a control group. Visual analog scales were used to measure anxiety and pain levels during the procedure. Results: Thirty subjects were randomized to each group. No statistically significant difference was found in anxiety or pain levels during the procedure between groups. However, most subjects in the music‐listening group reported anxiety and pain reduction and would prefer to hear music in a future examination. Conclusions: Although listening to music during electrophysiological examinations did not reduce anxiety or pain significantly, most subjects felt a positive effect and would prefer to hear music; therefore, we suggest that music may be offered optionally in the electromyography laboratory setting. Muscle Nerve 50 : 445–447, 2014     

Music lessons are associated with increased verbal memory in individuals with Williams syndrome

Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic disorder characterized by intellectual delay and an affinity for music. It has been previously shown that familiar music can enhance verbal memory in individuals with WS who have had music training. There is also evidence that unfamiliar, or novel, music may also improve cognitive recall. This study was designed to examine if a novel melody could also enhance verbal memory in individuals with WS, and to more fully characterize music training in this population. We presented spoken or sung sentences that described an animal and its group name to 44 individuals with WS, and then tested their immediate and delayed memory using both recall and multiple choice formats. Those with formal music training (average duration of training 4½ years) scored significantly higher on both the spoken and sung recall items, as well as on the spoken multiple choice items, than those with no music training. Music therapy, music enjoyment, age, and Verbal IQ did not impact performance on the memory tasks. These findings provide further evidence that formal music lessons may impact the neurological pathways associated with verbal memory in individuals with WS, consistent with findings in typically developing individuals.     

The influence of Mozart’s music on brain activity in the process of learning

OBJECTIVE: The study investigated the influence Mozart's music has on brain activity in the process of learning. A second objective was to test priming explanation of the Mozart effect. METHODS: In Experiment 1 individuals were first trained in how to solve spatial rotation tasks, and then solved similar tasks. Fifty-six students were divided into 4 groups: a control one--CG who prior to and after training relaxed, and three experimental groups: MM--who prior to and after training listened to music; MS--who prior to training listened to music and subsequently relaxed; and SM--who prior to training relaxed and afterward listened to music. The music used was the first movement of Mozart's sonata (K. 448). In Experiment 2, thirty-six respondents were divided into three groups: CG, MM (same procedure as in Experiment 1), and BM--who prior to and after training listened to Brahms' Hungarian dance No. 5. In both experiments the EEG data collected during problem solving were analyzed using the methods of event-related desynchronization/synchronization (ERD/ERS) and approximated entropy (ApEn). RESULTS: In the first experiment the respondents of the MM, MS, and SM groups showed a better task-performance than did the respondents of the CG group. Individuals of the MM group displayed less complex EEG patterns and more alpha band synchronization than did respondents of the other three groups. In Experiment 2 individuals who listened to Mozart showed a better task performance than did the respondents of the CG and BM groups. They displayed less complex EEG patterns and more lower-1 alpha and gamma band synchronization than did the respondents of the BM group. CONCLUSIONS: Mozart's music, by activating task-relevant brain areas, enhances the learning of spatio-temporal rotation tasks. SIGNIFICANCE: The results support priming explanation of the Mozart effect.     

An fMRI study of music sight-reading

The brain areas involved in music reading were investigated using fMRI. In order to evaluate the specificity of these areas we compared reading music notation to reading verbal and number notations in a task that required professional pianists to play the notes (in musical and verbal notations) and the numbers displayed on a 5-key keyboard. Overall, the three tasks revealed a similar pattern of activated brain areas. However, direct contrasts between the music notation and the verbal or the numerical notation tasks also revealed specific major foci of activation in the right occipito-temporal junction, superior parietal lobule and the intraparietal sulcus. We interpret the right occipito-temporal difference as due to differences at the encoding level between notes, words and numbers. This area might be analogous to one described for words, called the visual word form area. The parietal activations are discussed in terms of visuo-motor transcoding pathways that differ for the three types of notations used. Finally, we present a model of music reading that can possibly explain our findings.     

Assessment of musical processing in brain-damaged patients: implications for laterality of music

Reception and production aspects of musical ability were assessed in two studies of left cerebro-vascular accident (LCVA) and right cerebro-vascular accident (RCVA) patients and controls. Musical tasks included perception of rhythm and pitch variations in familiar and unfamiliar tunes; and production of a well-known song, three original melodies, and imitation of rhythm patterns. The only "laterality of music" effect to emerge in the first study was impaired ability in LVCA patients to correctly perceive rhythmic changes. In the second study LCVAs were poorer than the other two groups in the singing of novel melodies, and both lesioned groups were poorer than controls in singing a familiar tune and in tapping rhythms. Premorbid musical ability was significantly related to performance over all groups combined. The RCVA group showed an inconsistent pattern of performance. The LCVA group was consistently more impaired over all tasks but apart from the aforementioned effects this was nonsignificant. It is argued that laterality effects for music processing cannot be reliably established.     

Music-CRN: an Efficient Content-Based Music Classification and Recommendation Network

For human beings, music is generally perceived, categorized, and enjoyed based on its attributes, such as rhythm, pitch, timbre, and harmony. In recent years, due to their high performances, content-based music classification and recommendation systems have attracted much attention from both the music industry and research community. However, on the one hand, deep music classification models are still very rare, and on the other hand, the collaborative filtering approach, which has the cold start problem, still dominates the music recommendation applications. In this paper, we propose Music-CRN (short for music classification and recommendation network), a simple yet effective model that facilitates music classification and recommendation with learning the audio content features of music. Specifically, to extract the content features of music, the audio is converted into spectrogram “images” by Fourier transformation. Music-CRN can be applied on the spectrograms as similar as natural images to effectively extract music content features. Additionally, we collect a new dataset containing nearly 200,000 music spectrogram slices. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first publicly available music spectrogram dataset, which is at https://github.com/YX-Mao/Music-spectrum-image-data. We compare Music-CRN to previous content-based music classification and recommendation models on the collected dataset. Experimental results show that Music-CRN achieves state-of-the-art performance on music classification and recommendation tasks, demonstrating its superiority over previous methods.

     

Processing melodic contour and speech intonation in congenital amusics with Mandarin Chinese

Congenital amusia is a disorder in the perception and production of musical pitch. It has been suggested that early exposure to a tonal language may compensate for the pitch disorder (Peretz, 2008). If so, it is reasonable to expect that there would be different characterizations of pitch perception in music and speech in congenital amusics who speak a tonal language, such as Mandarin. In this study, a group of 11 adults with amusia whose first language was Mandarin were tested with melodic contour and speech intonation discrimination and identification tasks. The participants with amusia were impaired in discriminating and identifying melodic contour. These abnormalities were also detected in identifying both speech and non-linguistic analogue derived patterns for the Mandarin intonation tasks. In addition, there was an overall trend for the participants with amusia to show deficits with respect to controls in the intonation discrimination tasks for both speech and non-linguistic analogues. These findings suggest that the amusics’ melodic pitch deficits may extend to the perception of speech, and could potentially result in some language deficits in those who speak a tonal language.     

Assessment of musical processing in brain-damaged patients: Implications for laterality of music

Abstract

Reception and production aspects of musical ability were assessed in two studies of left cerebro-vascular accident (LCVA) and right cerebro-vascular accident (RCVA) patients and controls. Musical tasks included perception of rhythm and pitch variations in familiar and unfamiliar tunes; and production of a well-known song, three original melodies, and imitation of rhythm patterns. The only “laterality of music” effect to emerge in the first study was impaired ability in LVCA patients to correctly perceive rhythmic changes. In the second study LCVAs were poorer than the other two groups in the singing of novel melodies, and both lesioned groups were poorer than controls in singing a familiar tune and in tapping rhythms. Premorbid musical ability was significantly related to performance over all groups combined. The RCVA group showed an inconsistent pattern of performance. The LCVA group was consistently more impaired over all tasks but apart from the aforementioned effects this was nonsignificant. It is argued that laterality effects for music processing cannot be reliably established.     

Cognitive Science and the Cultural Nature of Music

The vast majority of experimental studies of music to date have explored music in terms of the processes involved in the perception and cognition of complex sonic patterns that can elicit emotion. This paper argues that this conception of music is at odds both with recent Western musical scholarship and with ethnomusicological models, and that it presents a partial and culture‐specific representation of what may be a generic human capacity. It argues that the cognitive sciences must actively engage with the problems of exploring music as manifested and conceived in the broad spectrum of world cultures, not only to elucidate the diversity of music in mind but also to identify potential commonalities that could illuminate the relationships between music and other domains of thought and behavior.     

A functional MRI study of three motor tasks in the evaluation of stroke recovery

Functional brain imaging studies have provided insights into the processes related to motor recovery after stroke. The comparative value of different motor activation tasks for probing these processes has received limited study. We hypothesized that different hand motor tasks would activate the brain differently in controls, and that this would affect control-patient comparisons. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to evaluate nine control subjects and seven patients with good recovery after a left hemisphere hemiparetic stroke. The volume of activated brain in bilateral sensorimotor cortex and four other motor regions was compared during each of three tasks performed by the right hand: index-finger tapping, four-finger tapping, and squeezing. In control subjects, activation in left sensorimotor cortex was found to be significantly larger during squeezing as compared with index-finger tapping. When comparing control subjects with stroke patients, patients showed a larger volume of activation in right sensorimotor cortex during index-finger tapping but not with four-finger tapping or squeezing. In addition, patients also showed a trend toward larger activation volume than controls within left supplementary motor area during index-finger tapping but not during the other tasks. Motion artifact was more common with squeezing than with the tapping tasks. The choice of hand motor tasks used during brain mapping can influence findings in control subjects as well as the differences identified between controls and stroke patients. The results may be useful for future studies of motor recovery after stroke.     

Periprocedural Management of Patients with Endovascular Treatment of Intracranial Atherosclerotic Disease

Clinical outcome in endovascular therapy of intracranial atherosclerosis with stenting and angioplasty or angioplasty alone is dependent on multiple other factors beside the procedure itself. Preprocedure combined antiplatelet administration of aspirin and clopidogrel and its duration is critical. Preferably, this should be administered 5-7 days prior to the intended procedure and 90 days after the stent placement is preferred. Anticoagulation during the procedure is implemented routinely in the neurointerventional labs during intracranial intervention, with a goal of activated clotting time between 250 to 300 seconds. The preferred agent is unfractionated heparin as an intravenous bolus of 70-80 units/kg, without postprocedure reversal in most cases. Control of blood pressure intraprocedure and in the neurointensive care unit to avoid intracranial hemorrhage and hyperperfusion injury is of paramount significance. The preferred blood pressure is not well known, but lowering the blood pressure below the baseline after luminal gain with stenting would be recommended to prevent secondary injury. The use of general anesthesia versus local and monitored awake anesthesia is controversial and there are no data to support one method over another in cases of intracranial atherosclerosis interventional and endovascular therapy. If the patient is cooperative and would be able to tolerate the procedure under awake anesthesia, the latter would provide an immediate assessment of the neurological outcome and feedback from the patient. However, general anesthesia would provide the interventionalist with less movement artifact and less road mapping need and immediate and accurate assessment of the location of the microwire, catheter, and stent.     

Subclinical deficit in the memory of chronic alcoholics. Comparison between 2 learning tests

Normal subjects and chronic alcoholics without clinical evidence of memory disorders have been compared on two tasks of verbal learning of a word list, one administered with the classical procedure and the other with the "selective reminding" technique developed by Bushke. Results showed that the selective reminding technique has the same discriminative power as the classical procedure: both brought out a remarkable learning deficit in chronic alcoholics. The selective reminding procedure is easier to administer and can distinguish between storage and retrieval deficits; it seems therefore preferable for diagnostic purposes. Practical criteria to distinguish a normal from pathologic performance on this test are suggested. Alcoholics were also inferior on Raven Progressive Matrices. The scope of the impairment produced by chronic alcohol consumption is wider than suggested by clinical observations and deserves careful assessment.     

Emotional and behavioural responses to music in people with dementia: an observational study

Using continuous time sampling and direct observation methodology, this study examined the impact of social interaction in music listening on behavioural responses of people with moderate-to-severe dementia (n = 24). Using Kitwood's theory of personhood as a framework, it was hypothesized that levels of well-being and engagement would be greatest during a live music condition compared with recorded and no music conditions and that levels of challenging behaviour would decrease most in the live music conditions compared with the other music conditions. The relationship between severity of cognitive impairment and well-being, engagement and challenging behaviours across conditions was also examined. The findings suggest that live music was significantly more effective in increasing levels of engagement and well-being regardless of level of cognitive impairment. No significant differences across conditions were found for challenging behaviours, but the correlation between these and cognitive impairment revealed mixed results. Clinical implications regarding the use of live music in dementia care settings are highlighted and recommendations for future research of interventions aimed at reducing challenging behaviours are discussed.     

A failure of 'pop-out' in visual search tasks in dementia with Lewy Bodies as compared to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease

OBJECTIVES: The pattern of neural damage in dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB) led us to hypothesize that patients with DLB would be particularly impaired on parallel ('pop-out') search tasks, relative to serial search tasks, and that this would serve to distinguish DLB from other forms of neurodegenerative disease, particularly Alzheimer's disease (AD). METHODS: To explore this possibility we tested four groups of observers (DLB, Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease and age-matched controls) on parallel and serial search tasks, and a choice reaction time task. RESULTS: The DLB participants performed in a quantitatively and qualitatively different manner to the other groups. As predicted, they were particularly impaired on the parallel search task relative to the other observer groups. CONCLUSIONS: This pattern of deficit may reflect damage in the occipital areas leading to deficits in figure-ground segregation, and can assist differential diagnosis of DLB from other patients groups such as AD.