[Well gentlemen (and Ms Ania, of course), this wonderful project is finally coming to a close and I thank you all so much for your support. I am in the process of producing a booklet for everyone involved. The booklet will contain printed pages of the Blog posts, photos, and all the produced materials. Included on the back covers will be an attached CD that will have the final summary (shown below) and both of the Power Points. I hope you enjoy them, they should be ready within three weeks. Again, thank you all so much, and especially Dr. Anand.]
A Preliminary Study Toward a New
Approach to the Neurology of Music for Therapeutic Purposes
By
W. Gerard Poole,
Ph.D.
For the
Center for Energetic
Concepts Development
Dr. Davinder Anand,
Director
and
Dr. Michael G. Pecht
Director of CALCE
Center for Life Cycle Engineering
In Conjunction with
the
Association for the
Exploration of Music, Culture, and Science
And in consultation
with
William Taft Stuart,
Ph.D.
Professor of
Anthropology, UMD at College Park
This preliminary investigation is about Music
Therapy and Brain Plasticity. It asks a basic question: Can there be a real,
significant, fruitful relationship between the two? This preliminary survey of
the field suggests strongly that there could be, and that the relationship
between the two might potentially revolutionize the field of music therapy. This
survey also strongly suggests that the fields of Ethnomusicology and Ritual
Studies can introduce compelling insights that will be useful to the field of
music therapy and to the phenomenon of brain plasticity.
The report involves three general subjects; (1) relevant
developments within the fields of brain research (brain plasticity),(2)
observations and analysis of specific music therapy applications, and (3) relevant
theories of music and evolution that suggest a new approach that the field of
music therapy might take.
Firstly, the paper discusses the general observation
that the most important group of facts to emerge over the last decade in regards
to brain research and music and neurology has to do with the concept of brain
plasticity. Two critical facts have emerged: first, that the brain is capable
of restructuring itself, and secondly, that this process continues throughout
the life of an individual (although it does diminish to some extent past late
childhood).
Secondly, this report covers some of the major
emergent facts that are relevant to the relationship between music and brain
plasticity. Two of the most important are: (1) that musical
processes (applied sound structures) can stimulate brain plasticity (generating
new cells) and (2) that music can also stimulate the innate powers of the brain
to restructure itself (increase connections between existing cells).
Furthermore, music practice can increase brain volume, predominantly within the
corpus colossus (that part of the midbrain through which the left and right
hemispheres coordinate with each other). These emergent facts have been shown
to be virtually conclusive though clinical studies that span roughly from the
mid-nineties to the present. Nonetheless the facts are subject to
interpretation as this report reveals.
A brief summary of specific theoretical models that link
music, the emotional spectrum, and evolution, are considered in order to
provide a foundational theory for how current music therapies might be
reformulated toward new direction. The chief authors considered are; Nils
Wallin (music, the emotional spectrum, brain capacity, and human consciousness);
Antonio Damasio (the neurology of the emotions and consciousness); Steven
Mithen (music, the corpus colossus brain mass, and cross-modular thinking
processes); Steven Levitin (the neurology of music and human social evolution);
Robert Jourdain (music and ecstasy) Robert Zatorre, and Isabel Peretz
(neurology of music, and cognition), J. Sloboda et al, (music and emotion); and
W. Gerard Poole (the Internalized Musical Form; relationships between musical
form, emotional mode, and ritual proliferation; music and ritual in relation to
the ecstatic experience).
It is proposed, based on the work of the above
authors, that proto-musical, and proto-ritual behaviors played critical roles
in the evolution of brain mass (new cell growth), brain capacity (more complex interconnections
between cells), and brain cross-modular processing (more complex interactions
between different parts of the brain), among late-hominids and early humans.
The aim of a music therapy then is to utilize innate fundamental relationships
between structured musical behaviors, the generation of structured sounds, and
the resultant neurological processes, to stimulate neurological changes within
the brain and the central nervous system.
In a sense then, the proposed therapy would stimulate the neurological
processes of the brain’s own evolutionary path. The difference being that
rather than stimulating the brain toward generating new capacities, the brain
would be stimulated to regenerate capacities it already possessed.
Critical to the issue of stimulating brain
plasticity are relationships between music, the emotions, endorphins, dopamine,
the issue of inhibition and dormancy versus cell awakening, etc. The fact that
music (or structured sound) can stimulate plasticity through stem cell growth
is the immediate issue. However, music can also suppress brain activity, which
is also critical.
Examples of
current nostalgic, or mood enhancement music therapy, as well as emotion and
memory based therapies are examined. These techniques tend to rely primarily on
the referential aspects of music, those qualities that it shares with language.
However, this study finds that changes from one state of mind, or one emotional
state to another, by using music to stimulate references, can only facilitate
other therapeutic techniques, and while it is also acknowledged that the link
between emotions and memory can be useful in the course of a therapy, in the
long run these kinds of music therapies cannot repair brain damage or even effectively
treat lesser ailments.
A central theoretical issue addressed by
this paper is the proposition that there is a basic misunderstanding of what is
occurring within the Broca area of the brain when processing music and
language. It is proposed that music harmony has nothing to do
with linguistic syntax. This issue represents a fundamental misunderstanding
about the nature of musical processes that is still prevalent among music
therapists and music neurologists.
Three experiments are proposed that would contribute
toward a concrete delineation between nostalgic, or referential musical
practices that characterize the current state of music therapy, and a new
applied structured music therapy that could potentially work directly on the
brain: music structure, performance structure, brain structure
