WHY MUSIC MATTERS - MUST READ......

We all listen to music for our own reasons. Some of us complain that there isn't any new music that compares to what we grew up with (the generation before us invented that line). Whatever your tastes are, the article below transcends all of that. Read it and it will bring a smile to your face. Yes, music might just be the soundtrack of people's lives - no matter what their condition.


Why Music Matters for Alzheimer’s Patients
March 02, 2009 07:30 AM
by Shannon Firth
A new UC Davis study shows that memory, music and emotions all activate the same region of the brain, which may have implications for Alzheimer’s patients.
Making Memories With Music
The idea that songs can evoke memories of people, places and moments from our pasts is hardly news, but Petr Janata, associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, has figured out why.

According to ScienceDaily, Janata’s research builds upon earlier findings that Alzheimer’s patients who have difficulty with their memory still respond to music. After mapping the brain activity of a group of individuals while they listened to music, Janata noted activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, an area just behind the forehead.

According to WiseGeek, “The prefrontal cortex is the brain center most strongly implicated in qualities like sentience, human general intelligence, and personality.” And the term medial, according to Medicine.net, simply means “nearer the middle of the body.”

MSNBC reported Janata’s finding that as Alzheimer’s progresses, this area remains intact longer, while most other areas of the brain have deteriorated. When a song elicits a memory, Janata explains, “[The] music serves as a soundtrack for a mental movie that starts playing in our head.”

In his early research, Janata created “tonal maps” of a subject’s brain activity as various chords were played. The areas active in the tonal study corresponded to the same areas where subjects appeared to be accessing memories—the medial prefrontal cortex and neighboring regions. ScienceDaily reported that the more significant the autobiographical memory was the stronger the “tracking” activity.

In another of Janata’s studies, he first selected a group of the most popular songs from years when the subjects were between 7 and 19 years old. David Munger, a writer for Cognitive Daily, explained that in this study, 329 subjects listened to 30 such songs chosen at random. They rated each song’s familiarity, what emotions it triggered, and whether or not they liked it. In cases where the song elicited a memory, they were asked whether the memory related to a person, place or event. Subjects recognized about half of the songs they heard, and about 30 percent of the songs stirred up a memory. The most familiar songs were more often linked to a memory.