How neuroscientists are unlocking the power of music to heal us

Music has an uncanny ability to transport us through time.
You might not remember what you ate for lunch last Thursday, but cue up a song you liked in high school and every line and power chord is likely to unlock long-buried memories. But the power of this art form doesn’t end there.
Depending on the song you choose (or is chosen for you), music can lift your mood, make a bad day even more agonizing, help you fall asleep or move your feet on a dance floor.
And as neuroscientist Dan Levitin recounts in his latest book, “I Heard There Was a Secret Chord,” scientists are uncovering how music can be harnessed to treat such ailments as Parkinson’s disease, mood disorders and PTSD. “Engaging with music, whether as a listener or a player, facilitates entry into the brain’s default mode network (DMN), a path to the subconscious that is instrumental for everything from problem-solving to relaxation, from creativity to immune system function,” he writes. “It can provide some of the most exhilarating and meaningful moments of our lives.”
Here, Levitin shares why music is so powerful, what the latest science shows about its effects on our brains and how technology could help transform this art form into a kind of medicine.
Music hits every area of the brain that has been mapped — it’s a whole brain activity. When we listen to music, different pieces of the music are extracted by different parts of the brain. Rhythm is processed in one part of the brain, the melody in another, the chords and harmonies in another, the lyrics in another. And the reason this is relevant is that each of them can get to different circuits in the brain that do different things.
When we talk about one possible application of music, which is to help restore speech in aphasics, people who lost the ability to speak like Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords — she learned to speak again by singing what she needed. She could sing things that she couldn’t speak because the lyrics are extracted and sent to a different part of the brain than speech is.
The big headline is that this is not just some alternative treatment or unproven technique. We now have a rigorous body of evidence that music can be used to help with a variety of health outcomes, from treating disease and injury to boosting the immune system, speeding up healing times, putting us in a good mood or allowing us to be more productive and live happier and healthier lives. 
In terms of specific findings, one of the obvious ones is Parkinson’s disease. People with Parkinson’s often freeze because the neural circuits that allow them to maintain a steady gait when they’re walking become degraded. When we play the music that is at the tempo of their natural gait, subsidiary circuits in the brain synchronize to that music. And then they can keep walking without stopping even after the music has stopped playing. That’s huge. 
One of the big findings of the last decade or so is that music activates the memory almost directly — we’ve seen this through brain scans. Music allows us to access memories that we hadn’t thought of for decades, or even memories that we forgot we had. This is why it’s so powerful in cases of dementia, where people who have lost an awareness of where they are, what year it is, they don’t recognize their loved ones — they may not even recognize themselves in a mirror. You put on a piece of music from their youth and they suddenly reconnect with themselves. And it’s incredible to see.
So, prescribing is an interesting question. What is the prescription for and what is the dose and how long do you take the music medicine? We’re not at that point yet. We’re more at the point where I would say that it’s a little better than self medication.
If you had a headache today, you’d probably just go to your medicine cabinet, and you’d get an Aspirin, or a Tylenol, or an Advil — some non-steroidal anti-inflammatory — or you’d have a cup of camomile tea. If your headache didn’t go away, you’d call your doctor and she would tell you to double up on the amount of these things you’re taking.
I’m talking about pain because it is the dominant complaint when people go to the doctor. The two things we use are tens of thousands of years old. We use the bark of a tree, or its synthetic equivalents, which is Aspirin. Or we use the parts of a poppy, which are opiates and their synthetic equivalents. And they only work 50 per cent of the time. This is the dirty little secret of the pharma industry: Opiates work 40 per cent of the time and placebo works 38 per cent of the time. The gap is very thin. But I mention this because if you want to say, “You guys aren’t very far along in this prescribing music stuff.” Well, we’re not that far along in the prescribing stuff for pain either. We’re at about the same point. Try this. We think it will work. 
Most people already use music for self medication, and they know what music to use. They know what music they want to have wake them up or help them fall asleep. What music to use as a social lubricant at a party. When you’re talking about depression and pain, those are special cases where most of us don’t have a musical drug cabinet. But that’s where a music therapist can help, help you to find music that will help you with that.
I’m imagining that in the not distant future, either AI or a music therapist will look at your Spotify playlist or the last hundred songs you’ve streamed on Apple Music or YouTube and use that as a launch point to understand your musical DNA — your musical tastes — and make some recommendations.
Of course, you’ll have some sort of a smartwatch or a smart ring that gives immediate feedback as to whether the music had the desired result. If you were anxious, did it lower your blood pressure? You’ll know right away. And then, in a feedback loop, we’ll be able to choose better music and focus on the features of the music that helped. Was it slow tempo? Was it low-pitched instruments? Was it minor keys? All of that stuff would be part of an intelligent network speaking between the music selection and your smartwatch.
If AI develops something that’s better than penicillin or a cure for cancer, I’m all for it. But if AI is making music that somehow feels like it’s crossed a line. … Music is personal. Think of the difference between your auditory sense and your visual sense.
When you look in front of you, what you see, a lamp, a tree — those are out there in the world. When you listen to somebody talk or you listen to music, it feels like it’s coming from inside your head, not outside your body. It’s very personal. So, the idea of machines getting in there is frightening.
Music therapy won’t work if it’s foisted on somebody. One of the big complaints that people have about modern life is having to listen to music. They don’t want to listen in public places. You have to have a willing patient. You can’t force the music on them and hope that it will have an effect. In fact, unwanted music is the one thing that caused Manuel Noriega to surrender, as you may recall.
The U.S. military had tried everything. They had cut off the water, they had cut off the food, they had cut off the air conditioning. It was only Van Halen played at 140 decibels that caused him to surrender.
In the next three to five years, we’re going to see AI working with music curators.
Maybe some national health service will use AI to help people select music to help you reach your therapeutic goals. So, one particular collection of music will help you personally lower your blood pressure. Another will help you focus.
It’s not going to be the same prescription for everybody. It’s going to be customized, personalized medicine. We can do that already. In my lab, we’ve been bringing people in and playing the music and wiring them up to equipment to see if it lowers their heart rate, their respiration rate, their muscle tension and things like that.
We see which ones work on an individual participant and then we just start grabbing other songs that we think are similar to the ones that were working, and we develop a personalized set. We can get about 75 per cent accuracy, but it’s very labour intensive. It takes me hours. AI can do it in minutes.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
To learn more about music’s powerful effects on the brain, listen to the latest episode of the MaRS podcast Solve for X: Innovations to Change the World.