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       Study: Our brains respond to music, whatever our age
        
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       ONTARIO, May 8 ― Music seems to provoke a multitude of emotions in
       those who listen to it, whatever their age. A Canadian-American study
       recently published in the journal Network Neuroscience has
       investigated this phenomenon.
        
       The researchers used music to study the brain function of older and
       younger individuals. They monitored the brain activity of two cohorts
       of participants while they listened to music: one composed of young
       adults with an average age of 19, the other of seniors with an average
       age of 67.
        
       The academics played 24 recordings, including excerpts from well-known
       and easily recognisable songs, as well as songs the participants had
       chosen themselves. They also introduced them to melodies that had been
       specially designed for the purposes of the study. The volunteers had
       therefore never heard them before.
        
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       It turns out that the young adults' reward circuitry was activated
       when they listened to music they were familiar with or enjoyed. This
       is hardly surprising: music has been proven to be a powerful emotional
       trigger. The fourth art has the power to rouse emotions that lead to
       the production of a number of neurotransmitters, including dopamine.
       Research, published in 2011 in the journal Nature Neuroscience, even
       claims that listening to music can increase dopamine levels in the
       brain by 6 to 9 per cent. This is the same compound that activates the
       brain's reward circuit.
        
       **Music's power on the brain**
        
       Surprisingly, in seniors, the brain's reward system was found to be
       activated even when they listened to music that was previously
       unfamiliar to them, or that they said they didn't like. The
       researchers conclude that "music listening engages multiple brain
       networks that may reorganise in multiple ways as we age."
        
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       The researchers hypothesize that older people show less
       differentiation between liking and familiarity when listening to a new
       song. "If familiarity is lower among older adults, but liking is
       consistent with younger adults, it is possible that older adults would
       engage a different network response to music that is unfamiliar but
       liked," they write.
        
       This demonstrates the power of music to activate brain chemistry at
       any age. "Understanding how music works in the brain is highly
       complex, especially given that our brains are constantly evolving with
       age," says Sarah Faber, the Simon Fraser University neuroscientist who
       led the study, quoted in a news release. "But even when the music is
       not familiar to them, it still has the ability to make their body
       move, and to help calibrate or balance their emotions by activating
       those regions in the brain."
        
       The question now is whether music has the same effect on the brains of
       seniors with Alzheimer's disease or senile dementia. Sarah Faber and
       colleagues intend to build on the findings of their study to find out.
       Research in this field is still in its early days, but a better
       understanding of the processes involved could help improve support for
       people affected by cognitive decline. ― ETX Studio
        
        
        
        
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