Every week, I call my grandmother in Japan and talk for an hour about new life updates. She is recovering tremendously thanks to the great care that she is receiving from her rehabilitation facility, but she still has trouble remembering past events and conversations from a few moments ago. However, over many phone calls, I realized that she has an incredibly strong connection to music, in particular, to songs she used to listen to and sing all the time. She can sing the lyrics and hum the melody without a problem.
And the strong connection with music doesn’t just apply to people with Alzheimer’s disease. For instance, many people have a song that reminds them of someone, now somewhere far away, that meant so much to them before. Sometimes, people cry listening to those songs because it evokes such strong emotions and memories associated with the person or music. I’ve never studied neuroscience, but this got me curious about the relationship between music, memory, and emotions. What makes music such a big part of our lives compared to other forms of art, like paintings?
Many studies have shown that music activates brain regions associated with autobiographical memories–the memories of significant personal events and experiences from an individual’s life–and emotions (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.636028/full). Music also supposedly increases blood flow to the region of your brain that controls emotions, hence why many people suddenly experience heightened emotions. But that doesn’t really answer my question: why has the brain developed to create such strong associations with music? Do other animals function the same way? If there’s a neuroscientist (or not) with an answer, I’d love to know.
Music also taps into our emotions in a way that words can’t. There’s something about the melody, chords, tempo, lyrics, etc., of music that evokes a particular emotion. This is another thing that I’ve always been curious about: how can humans distinguish between which songs are sad (e.g., a song about heartbreak) and happy (e.g., a song about love)? Do we just naturally know that something in a minor key is sad, is it learned, etc.? Neuroscience is so fascinating, and although I don’t intend to pursue it as a career, I’m certainly interested in learning more about it.
And an unrelated note about music. What I love doing myself: I have a compiled Spotify playlist with music I’ve listened to since I was in middle school. Sometimes, going through the playlist from the top, one by one, brings back so many sweet (and bittersweet) memories from my teenage years. I’m not sure if my emotional connection with music is deeper than other people’s because I’ve played musical instruments for the majority of my life, but it’s definitely a character of mine that I love and appreciate.
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