let music be medicine

The brain naturally creates rhythms. One way to confirm this is to record electrical activity in the brain. This electrical activity is caused by ions (particles with positive or negative charges, such as sodium and chloride, which are components of salt) passing through brain cell membranes.

EEG (electroencephalography), a painless and harmless technique that uses wires (electrodes) placed on the scalp to record this activity, has been around for almost a century. EEG reveals that much of the electrical activity in a healthy brain is rhythmic and not random. However, if there is a disease in the brain, the rhythm becomes disrupted.

EEG measures rhythmic brain waves in cycles per second called Hertz. Slow brain waves (called theta waves) occur in an area of ​​the brain’s temporal lobe known as the entorhinal hippocampal network.¹ High-speed brain waves (called gamma waves)² successful couple memory performance.

Alzheimer’s disease reduces the brain’s ability to combine these rhythms. It has been known for decades that it is the oldest. memory loss This impairment correlates with pathology of the entorhinal hippocampal network.³ Recently, it has been thought that memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease is related to decreased coupling of theta and gamma brain waves in this network.⁴

Dr. Edward Large neuroscientist from the University of Connecticut, along with colleagues Ji Chul Kim, Ph.D., and Psyche Loui, Ph.D., are researching non-invasive ways to address this brainwave coupling phenomenon and abnormalities. The research team’s research shows that external stimulation delivered at theta and gamma frequencies can compensate for the loss of theta and gamma brain waves produced internally by the brain. Simply put, music provides theta brain wave stimulation and light provides gamma brain wave stimulation.

In addition to their academic research work, Raj and Kim co-founded Oscillo Biosciences (oscillobiosciences.com) to develop practical devices that deliver sound and light stimulation in the privacy of the home. In her lab at Northeastern University, Louis is testing the use of music and light to stimulate at delta and gamma frequencies, respectively.

How does light provide brain gamma wave stimulation? This device emits pulses of light intermittently at a rate of 30 times per second. It is currently unknown how visual stimuli processed in the brain’s occipital and posterior parietal lobes are able to find their targets in the temporal lobes. This is one of the questions Raji and his colleagues are investigating.

How does music stimulate the brain’s theta waves? After all, the main pulse of most music is in the delta range (below 4 Hz, or 240 BPM). However, the music also includes subtle sub-rhythms, often faster than the main pulse beat. These subrhythms occur an integral number of times faster than the main pulse beat, typically two or three times faster. In some cases, these subrhythms may be distinct. When you consider the waltz-like subrhythms that occur at around 300 BPM in “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and “Color My World,” it becomes clear what is hidden within many musical compositions.^5,6 These faster sub-rhythms flood our ears and brains, even though we are not consciously aware of them in many musical works.

Louis and her team have investigated music and light stimulation methods in healthy people (normal controls) and are currently testing them in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. So far, they have found evidence that their method improves memory and increases hippocampal activity in early-stage Alzheimer’s patients.^{7, 8, 9} More than 90 people have been tested so far (about an equal number of normal young adults, normal older adults, and adults with early Alzheimer’s disease), and there are extensive reports of no side effects.¹⁰

Large, who has a background in classical guitar and advanced mathematics, hopes that one day music and light stimulation will become mainstream ways to manage the cognitive symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (and perhaps other diseases as well). He says one of the great strengths of his company’s method is that it gives people the freedom to choose the music they want to listen to, since music contains subrhythms in the theta range.

Music has long played a role in managing behavioral symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, such as agitation. The fact that music is now being evaluated as a means to improve the cognitive symptoms of this disease represents an interesting new development.