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Ana Mosciuk

What happens in your brain when listening to music?

Updated: Jun 12, 2023

If you’ve tried listening to classical music to better concentrate on your studies, you might have heard about the Mozart Effect - the theory that listening to Mozart’s music can result in a short-term improvement of different cognitive tasks and processes.


In 1993, a study by Rauscher et al. published in Nature showed that people who listened to ten minutes of Mozart’s music experienced improvements in visual-spatial reasoning.

Since then, listening to music has been shown to be a great tool to help people suffering from anxiety, hypertension, and epilepsy. More recent studies found that repeated listening to their favourite music improved memory performance in patients with early Alzheimer’s disease.


So, what happens in your brain when listening to music? Read on to learn what brain areas get activated when turning on your Spotify playlist, and let’s settle the debate whether listening to classical music is more beneficial for your brain.


What brain areas are activated when listening to music?


Listening to music activates some of the broadest and most diverse networks of the brain. Apart from activating the auditory cortex, listening to music also activates other networks of the brain. For instance, researchers found that motor areas of the brain are involved in the processing of musical pulse, supporting the idea that movement and music are connected. The limbic system, the regions of the brain typically associated with emotions, is also involved in rhythm and tonality processing. Meanwhile, fMRI studies recorded activation of the default mode network, associated with mind-wandering and creativity.


Music can evoke strong emotions that enhance memory processes, so listening to music can also be involved in forming new memories – either directly, such as the lyrics of the song you’re listening to, or implicitly, such as events and information associated with particular music.


Is listening to your favourite music better for your brain?


A study conducted at the University of Toronto showed that repeated listening to personally meaningful music improves brain plasticity in patients with mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers found that daily listening to autobiographically salient music activated diverse brain regions. They reported structural and functional changes in the prefrontal cortex, responsible for executive function, and observed differences in the brain’s connections and white matter, showing evidence of neuroplasticity. When patients with early-stage cognitive decline were listening to autobiographically salient music, it activated a distinct neural network, composed of diverse brain regions, and showed differences in activation after listening to this music every day for a period of time.


Moreover, the changes in the brain’s neural pathways correlated with increased memory performance in the memory sub-score of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) - a neuropsychological test for detecting cognitive impairment. Therefore, music with personal meaning can stimulate neural connectivity and help maintain higher levels of functioning. Potentially, these results suggest how music could be used as a therapeutic tool for patients with dementia in the future.


So, keep listening to the music you’ve loved all your life - it really can improve your cognitive abilities.


Photo by Soundtrap on Unsplash.

 

This article was written by Ana Mosciuk and edited by Julia Dabrowska. Interested in writing for WiN UK yourself? Contact us through the blog page and the editors will be in touch!

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