Music, neurology, and psychology in the nineteenth century

[Effects of classical or heavy metal music in humans and animals: implications for intensive care medicine]

BACKGROUND

The importance of music in intensive care medicine is still controversial and the mechanisms of music are unclear. It is important whether different music styles (classical music [CM], Heavy Metal [HM] show measurable effects on blood pressure (BP) or heart rate (HR) in humans or not. It is also unclear whether behavioral patterns are influenced by music (CM, HM) in animals.

METHODS

We studied the influence of CM (Bach, Orchestral Suite No. 3, BWV 1068) and HM (Band Disturbed: Indestructible) compared to a control group (CO) without music exposure in 120 healthy subjects (60 study subjects, 60 control subjects) and 36 young pigs (18 Pietrains, 18 Wiesenauer Minipigs) according to an identical study protocol (21 minutes of music exposure (CM, HM) or 21 minutes of no music (C0).

RESULTS

We were able to clearly demonstrate in 36 pigs that CM led to significantly more activity behavior than HM or CO (p<0,01). HM caused significantly more stress behavior than CM or CO (p<0,01). In humans, there was a decrease in BPsyst, BPdiast or HR (beats per minute [bpm]) among CM: decrease BPsyst -7,5±9,1 mm Hg, BPdiast -4,9±7,5 mm Hg, HR -7,2±10,2 bpm. This was observed less frequently in HM: BPsyst -3,6±7,1 mm Hg, BPdiast -2,7±6,9 mm Hg, HR -5,9±9,0 bpm. The influence of BP and HR was significantly lower in CO compared to music: BPsyst -2,3±7,2 mm Hg, BPdiast -2,0±7,3 mm Hg, HR -5,8±12,3 bpm.

CONCLUSIONS

BP and HR in humans and behavioral patterns in animals are clearly influenced by music. CM leads more frequently to activity behavior in animals and to lower BP and HR in humans compared to HM or CO. In both animal breeds, stress behavior was observed more frequently in HM compared to CM or CO. Therefore, music may play a role in intensive care medicine.

Music processing and amusia

Music is a universal and important human trait, which is orchestrated by complex brain network centered in the temporal lobe but connecting broadly to multiple cortical and subcortical regions. In the human brain, music engages a widespread bilateral network of regions that govern auditory perception, syntactic and semantic processing, attention and memory, emotion and reward, and motor skills. The ability to perceive or produce music can be severely impaired either due to abnormal brain development or brain damage, leading to a condition called amusia. Modern neuroimaging studies of amusia have provided valuable knowledge about the structure and function of specific brain regions and white matter pathways that are crucial for music perception, highlighting the role of the right frontotemporal network in this process. In this chapter, we provide an overview on the neural basis of music processing in a healthy brain and review evidence obtained from the studies of congenital and acquired amusia.

Neural architectures of music - Insights from acquired amusia

The ability to perceive and produce music is a quintessential element of human life, present in all known cultures. Modern functional neuroimaging has revealed that music listening activates a large-scale bilateral network of cortical and subcortical regions in the healthy brain. Even the most accurate structural studies do not reveal which brain areas are critical and causally linked to music processing. Such questions may be answered by analysing the effects of focal brain lesions in patients´ ability to perceive music. In this sense, acquired amusia after stroke provides a unique opportunity to investigate the neural architectures crucial for normal music processing. Based on the first large-scale longitudinal studies on stroke-induced amusia using modern multi-modal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques, such as advanced lesion-symptom mapping, grey and white matter morphometry, tractography and functional connectivity, we discuss neural structures critical for music processing, consider music processing in light of the dual-stream model in the right hemisphere, and propose a neural model for acquired amusia.