Music and the mind

Robyn Williams: Do you remember a series of programs I did in 1976 on dyslexia? The therapist who achieved some quite remarkable results with her young patients did so by teaching them to dance. Then here was the comedian Terry Thomas, with whom I did something on TV in 1971. He was already stiff and awkward, showing signs of Parkinsons disease. Later, in a TV documentary, Jonathan Miller showed how Terry Thomas could barely walk through a doorway, but he could easily dance through it.

Music, the magic ingredient - now a new book shows why it works. This is Professor Roger Rees in Adelaide:

Roger Rees: The distinguished author and neurologist Oliver Sacks has been lobbying the US Congress for music therapy to be recognised as a necessary treatment for people recovering from trauma and for people experiencing mental health difficulties. In the UK a study is examining the psychological impact of being exposed to bird song including whether it helps us to relax, can assist our ability to complete tasks and even think creatively. Meanwhile in Australia the SBS documentary titled The Musical Brain illuminates how the brain uses music to shape human experience.

Pioneering music therapy has been fundamental for Congress women Gabrielle Giffords recovery from a severe brain injury as a result of being shot in the head. The bullet fired punctured the left hemisphere of Gabrielles brain, the control centre for language and right sided body movement. Neurological music therapy known as NMT has been an integral part of Gabrielles packed therapy routine and her recovery.

We know that music and rhythm work across all parts of the brain, helping people not just to speak again, but also to walk and cope with daunting emotional challenges. An inspiring film The Music Never Stopped is the story of a young man lost in the depths of amnesia and reunited with his father by the power of music. In the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude the Nobel Prize winning author Gabriel Marquez identifies musics influence on the mind when he writes that gypsy music sowed a panic of uproarious joy through the streets with parrots of all colours reciting Italian arias.

Im not suggesting that learning and singing Italian arias is a sure way to recovery but since songs and emotions go hand in hand they certainly influence personal motivation. Participants in Flinders Universitys Community Rehabilitation program for people with brain injury have produced a CD of their song titled The Second Time Around, this has been motivating for them and has had remarkable therapeutic outcomes.

Our thoughts and memories arise from the myriad connections that our neurones make, since music enhances these connections we want to use music to increase neuronal connections and therefore a persons adjustment, resilience and post trauma learning.

Learning effectively leaves new footprints in the brain that is new synaptic connections develop. Studies of musicians who play stringed instruments have shown that the more these musicians practice, the larger the brain maps for their active left hands become. Similarly for trumpeters the neurons and maps that respond to brassy sounds enlarge. Im not insisting that stroke victims should become cellists or that traumatised refugee children learn to play the trumpet but these examples once again indicate the benefits of making music.

When a person is traumatised by brain injury, stroke, or the onset of a neurological disease such as multiple sclerosis or Parkinsons syndrome, that every creative strategy across disciplines, must be used to enable the person to achieve as normal a life as possible. Ive observed how music bridges professional, lay and family goals when together they become involved in the rehabilitation process. How then does making and listening to music influence people or how does music access a persons central nervous system in order to produce functional outcomes?

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Music and the mind