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    Music and The Frontal Lobe

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    John
    The document discusses research showing that different types of music have different effects on the brain, particularly the frontal lobe. Some music, like classical music, tends to stimulate the frontal lobe and positively influence functions like reasoning, while other music like rock music has been shown to bypass the frontal lobe and negatively impact learning, memory, and behavior in both mice and humans. The research suggests that long-term exposure to rock-like music may cause brain changes like hippocampal damage and frontal lobe shrinkage that could increase risks of depression and impaired learning and decision-making abilities.

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    Music and The Frontal Lobe

    Uploaded by

    John
    95 views4 pages
    The document discusses research showing that different types of music have different effects on the brain, particularly the frontal lobe. Some music, like classical music, tends to stimulate the frontal lobe and positively influence functions like reasoning, while other music like rock music has been shown to bypass the frontal lobe and negatively impact learning, memory, and behavior in both mice and humans. The research suggests that long-term exposure to rock-like music may cause brain changes like hippocampal damage and frontal lobe shrinkage that could increase risks of depression and impaired learning and decision-making abilities.

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    Frontal Lobe

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    Music and the Frontal Lobe

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    The document discusses research showing that different types of music have different effects on the brain, particularly the frontal lobe. Some music, like classical music, tends to stimulate the frontal lobe and positively influence functions like reasoning, while other music like rock music has been shown to bypass the frontal lobe and negatively impact learning, memory, and behavior in both mice and humans. The research suggests that long-term exposure to rock-like music may cause brain changes like hippocampal damage and frontal lobe shrinkage that could increase risks of depression and impaired learning and decision-making abilities.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    95 views4 pages

    Music and The Frontal Lobe

    Uploaded by

    John
    The document discusses research showing that different types of music have different effects on the brain, particularly the frontal lobe. Some music, like classical music, tends to stimulate the frontal lobe and positively influence functions like reasoning, while other music like rock music has been shown to bypass the frontal lobe and negatively impact learning, memory, and behavior in both mice and humans. The research suggests that long-term exposure to rock-like music may cause brain changes like hippocampal damage and frontal lobe shrinkage that could increase risks of depression and impaired learning and decision-making abilities.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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    The document discusses research on the effects of different types of music, particularly classical vs rock music, on brain regions like the frontal lobe and hippocampus. It suggests that classical music may have generally positive effects while rock music could have negative effects like impairing learning and memory.

    The researchers divided mice into three groups - one that listened to rock music, one that listened to classical, and one that heard no music. They tested the mice in a maze to find food over an 8 week period.

    The researchers found visible evidence of abnormal branching and sprouting of nerve cells in the hippocampus, as well as disruptions in messenger RNA, a chemical crucial for memory storage. They also found frontal lobe shrinkage in the mice that listened to rock music.

    Music and the Frontal Lobe

    Few people understand music’s powerful frontal lobe influence. All music enters the brain
    through its emotional regions yet some types of music also stimulate the frontal lobe
    responses.i

    Some kinds of music tend to produce a frontal lobe response that influences the will, moral
    worth, and reasoning power. Other kinds of music will evoke very little, if any, frontal lobe
    response, but will produce a large emotional response with very little logical or moral
    interpretation.

    Music appears to have both general and specific brain effects. Listening to music appears to
    favorably balance the frontal lobe function in depression. By actual EEG measurement, music
    decreases over-dominant right frontal lobe activity in chronically depressed individuals.ii,iii
    However, medical research also raises serious concerns about certain types of music.

    Thus, depending on the type of music, its net influence can be either beneficial or
    detrimental—depending on whether it predominately stimulates the frontal lobe or the
    “lower” emotional centers. Music therapists tell us certain types of music, such as rock with
    its syncopated rhythm, bypass the frontal lobe and our ability to reason and make judgments
    about it. Evidence suggests that it, like television, can produce a hypnotic effect.iv

    Is Rock Music Ruining our Kids?


    Over the years various individuals have accused rock music of ruining America’s youth.
    Some years ago, researchers Schreckenberg and Bird (a neurobiologist and physicist) teamed
    up to put this generalization to a test. They designed a study to evaluate neurological
    reactions in mice to different musical rhythms.v

    Throughout their eight week study, the investigators kept their mice divided into three
    groups; one group constantly heard rock-groups; one group constantly heard rock-like
    disharmonic drum beats softly playing, a second group heard only classical music, while the
    third heard no music at all.
    At the beginning of the study, all the mice went through a standard maze test (searching for
    food at the end of the maze). All three groups performed equally well, groping about the
    maze until they found the food. By the end of the eight weeks the second and third groups
    had learned the direct path to the food. The “rock group,” however, was still groping about,
    taking much longer to find the food then the other two groups.

    Next there was a three-week break in their maze training where no music played. After that,
    the mice were re-tested. Again the rock group performed poorly. They continued to have
    difficulty remembering how to get to their food, while the other two groups still found it
    quickly. The rock group seemed almost to be starting from scratch, groping around
    disoriented. Both the control group and the classical group, on the other hand, could run the
    maze considerably faster, providing they restrained what they learned. However, the rock
    group appeared to have an irreversible learning handicap.

    To determine why the poor performers had so much trouble, the researchers examined their
    brains, looking for changes in the hippocampus. Remember, this region lies deep in the brain
    and affects emotions, memory, and learning. Schreckenberg and Bird found visible evidence
    of abnormal branching and sprouting of the nerve cells, as well as disruptions in messenger
    RNA, a chemical crucial to memory storage.

    Schreckenberg and Bird’s research not only linked rock-like music to hippocampal damage,
    they also found it caused frontal lobe shrinkage. If such results carried over to humans, we
    would expect deleterious effects on moral values, learning, and reasoning power.
    Furthermore, because of the connections between frontal lobe impairment and depression, we
    might also anticipate a connection between rock music and depression.
    Although neurologists, psychologists, and other health professionals may debate some of the
    connections between music genres and depression, several associations seem clear from the
    human research literature.

    First, rock music and music videos have been linked to harmful believes and behaviors, even
    in adolescence, such as harmful sexual attitudes and alcohol use.vi

    Furthermore, music videos, especially those shown on MTV, have a track record of positively
    modeling tobacco smoking.vii Indeed, a variety of risky behaviors have been associated with
    watching contemporary music videos and heavy metal music preferences.

    Second, such high risk behaviors (whether they involve substance abuse, sexual attitudes and
    practices, or other behaviors), in and of themselves, are associated with depression.

    Third, if someone becomes frankly depressed and is contemplating suicide, music videos
    with violent and self destructive imagery appear to nurture suicidal thinking.viii A number of
    studies have described a link between heavy metal listening and suicidal ideation. Although
    research suggests pre-existing factors may attract youth with suicidal tendencies to this music
    genre, there are also indications that such rock music perpetuates depression and suicidal
    ideation.ix

    On the other hand, harmonious hymns and symphonies produce beneficial frontal lobe
    responses. Although controversial, the research literature has been convincing enough to me
    that I raised my children in this kind of musical environment. For example, some studies link
    classical music, such as Mozart piano sonatas, to improve spatial-temporal reasoning—useful
    in disciplines like engineering and geometry.x In another study, three to five-year-old children
    who were given eight months of group singing and keyboard lessons demonstrated improved
    frontal lobe function compared to similar aged children who didn’t receive such music
    lessons.xi

    The impact of music on shaping the character (and hence the frontal lobe) was recognized at
    least 23 centuries ago. Aristotle, the famous Greek philosopher wrote, “...when one listens to
    music that imitates a certain passion he becomes imbued with the same passion. If over a
    long time he habitually listens to the kind of music that rouses ignoble [degraded or vulgar]
    passions, his whole character will be shaped to an ignoble form. In short, if one listens to the
    wrong kind of music he will become the wrong kind of person; conversely, if he listens to the
    right kind of music he will tend to become the right kind of person.”xii

    Certainly from the studies we’ve briefly reviewed, most music television programming and
    other sources of rock-like music appear to fit into Aristotle’s category of music that shapes
    character “to an ignoble form.” I can’t help but wonder what would happen if our young
    people all group up in a positive, supportive environment—with the best quality classical
    music. I imagine many more would become wholesome, ethical individuals who would be
    numbered among the greatest men and women in history.
    i. J. McElwain, Personal Communication (Enid, OK: Phillips University).

    ii. T. Field, A. Martinez, et al., "Music shifts frontal EEG in depressed adolescents,"
    Adolescence (Spring 1998): 109-116.

    iii. N. A. Jones, T. Field, "Massage and music therapies attenuated frontal EEG asymmetry in
    depressed adolescents," Adolescence (Fall 1999): 529-534.

    iv. J. McElwain, Personal Communication (Enid, OK: Phillips University).

    v. G. Schreckenberg, H. H. Bird, "Neural plasticity of MUS musculus in response to


    disharmonic sound," The Bulletin (New Jersey Academy of Science, 1987): 77-86.

    vi. L. Kalof, "The effects of gender and music video imagery on sexual attitudes," J Soc
    Psychol (Jun 1999): 378-385, D. L. Peterson, K. S. Pfost, "Influence of rock videos on
    attitudes of violence against women," Psychol Rep (February 1989): 319-22, J. S. Strouse, N.
    Buerkel-Rothfuss, E. C. Long, "Gender and family as moderators of the relationship between
    music video exposure and adolescent sexual permissiveness," Adolescence (Fall 1995): 505-
    521, and T. Robertson, H. Chen, J. D. Killen, "Television and music video exposure and risk
    of adolescent alcohol use," Paediatrics (November 1998): E54.

    vii. R. H. DuRant, E. S. Rome, M. Rich, E. Allred, S. J. Emans, E. R. Woods, "Tobacco and


    alcohol use behaviours portrayed in music videos: a content analysis," Am J Public Health
    (July 1997): 1131-5.

    viii. R. A. Rustad, J. E. Small, D. A. Jobes, M. A. Safer, R. J. Peterson, "The impact of rock


    videos and music with suicidal content on thoughts and attitudes about suicide," Suicide Life
    Treat Behav (Summer 2003): 120-31.

    ix. S. Stack, "Heavy metal, religiosity, and suicide acceptability," Suicide Life Threat Behave
    (Winter 1998): 388-94.

    x. F. Rauscher, G. Shaw G, K. N. Ky, "Listening to Mozart enhances spatial temporal


    reasoning: Towards a neurophysiological basis," Neuroscience netter 185 (1995): 44-47.

    xi. F. Rauscher, G. Shaw, et al., Music and Spatial Task Performances: A casual relationship
    (Presented at the American Psychological Association 102nd Annual Convention in Los
    Angeles, CA: August 12-16, 1994).

    xii. D. Grout, A History of Western Music third edition (New York: W.W. Norton &
    Company, 1980).

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