Assessment
Get In Tune With Music
Music and the brain have a harmonious relationship
Turn up the radio. Sing a song. Dance around the room or pick up a guitar. Making and enjoying music can stimulate your brain, trigger memories and emotions, connect you with others and enrich your life, according to a report from AARP’s Global Council on Brain Health (GCBH).
How exactly does this happen? Music engages multiple parts of the brain and helps them work together, according to the GCBH report Music on Our Minds. It is based on a review of scientific literature by independent experts. But you don’t have to be a scientist to recognize music’s power to move your body or surface emotions, says GCBH member Jacobo Mintzer, a professor in the department of health studies at the Medical University of South Carolina.
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“When we listen to a tune that has a positive emotional context for us, it automatically brings up memories associated with it,” he says. Even people with dementia respond to music from their past, according to the report.
“What we don’t know is if the music will stimulate memories not related to the music,” Mintzer says. “Will it also help me remember the list of what I need to get at the grocery store?” Research is ongoing.
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