"Western classical music can significantly affect brain activity, particularly in people with treatment-resistant depression. By measuring brainwaves and neural imaging, scientists discovered that music synchronizes neural oscillations between brain regions associated with sensory and emotional processing, enhancing mood.
Another aspect of the rhythm or beat of the music is the phenomenon of entrainment. A strong beat will cause the listener's body rhythms to move up or down to synchronize with the music. In many cases, the slow beat will have a slowing effect on the brain and physiological functions such as blood pressure or heart rate, which can facilitate an altering of the mood.
This study suggests that personalized music therapy could be a powerful tool for treating depression, especially when integrated with other sensory stimuli.
Another benefit of the patterns in the music is their ability to affect different areas of the brain and provide pathways between those differing areas so that they can coordinate and synchronize. A picture of that might look like the various parts of the brain organizing around correlating parts of the music tapestry to form a beautiful soundscape and functional diagram of harmony, I'm just putting that into my own words to help me understand what is going on at the organic level of brain function.
The Study Finds article referenced above, recommended adding some prescriptive frequencies to the music for added benefit. "Interestingly, the study found that even patients who were initially unresponsive to music could benefit from a technique called auditory entrainment.
By incorporating specific sound frequencies into the music, researchers could 'tune' the patients' brains to be more receptive to the mood-boosting effects of music."
The article went on to postulate on the mechanism stating, "The researchers found that enjoyable music activates a complex network involving the auditory cortex (the brain's sound processing center) and two deeper brain regions: the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) and the nucleus accumbens (NAc). These areas are part of the brain's reward circuit, which plays a crucial role in mood regulation and pleasure."
I cannot count how many times I have had people comment on my YouTube channel that the harp music I share has given them a sense of calm and enabled them to sleep through a full night which has never happened before. Parents and teachers have told me they use my harp music regularly to quiet and calm their children and classrooms.
One person relayed to me that their dog goes and lays down by the speaker whenever the music is on and promptly falls asleep. Since lack of good sleep is often associated with depression, it stands to reason that this rest can also be one of the mechanisms for treating depression.
In some studies, I have previously written about, music was found to be at least as effective, if not more effective, than pharmaceutical products, so the argument was offered that music could be a way of controlling costs and negating side effects. In this study, music was found to be able to work on people for whom the pharmaceutical preparations had not been effective.
In my mind, that's even better. Not only is music a great adjunctive therapy, but in the case of TRD (treatment-resistant depression), music may well be the only available effective treatment.
There is much to learn and explore here. Stay tuned.