Origins of Music in the Brain Suggest Role as Medical Therapy

Music serves as a natural and non-invasive intervention for patients with severe neurological disorders to promote long-term memory, social interaction and communication. Yukiko Kikuchi, from Georgetown University Medical Center  (Washington, DC, USA), and colleagues investigated the neural basis for why and how music affects physical and psychosocial responses.  Using electrophysiological recording techniques to study the neuronal activities in the auditory cortex of awake monkeys, the team demonstrated that neurons tuned to fundamental frequencies and harmonic sounds, and such neural mechanisms of harmonic processing lay close to tonotopically organized auditory areas. The researchers hope their findings “will allow a neurobiological framework from which to understand the basis of the effectiveness of music therapeutic interventions.”