Research Music and Behavior: How Music Can Lower Cortisol.
Listening to music feels good but can translate to physiological benefit? Levitin and colleagues published a meta-analysis of 400 studies in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, suggesting the answer is yes. In a study that was reviewed, researchers investigated patients who were about to have surgery. Participants were randomly assigned to either listen to music or take anti-anxiety medications. Scientists followed patients' reviews about their own anxiety, as well as the levels of the stress hormone cortisol . The results: The patients who listened to music had less anxiety and less cortisol than people who used drugs. Levitin warned that this is just one study and more research needs to be done to confirm the results, but it points to a powerful medicinal use for music.
Research music and behavior
So music is good for us, but how do we judge which music is enjoyable? A study , published in the journal Science, suggests patterns of brain activity may indicate if someone likes what they heor she hears. Valorie Salimpoor, a researcher at Rotman Research Institute in Toronto and former Levitin student, led a study in which participants listened to 60 pieces of music they had never heard before in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine. The 19 participants were asked to indicate how much money they would spend on a particular song while listening to the fragments, while also allowing the researchers to analyze patterns of brain activity via the fMRI. The study authors highlight in their results a brain region called the nucleus accumbens and involved in forming expectations.
