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EDITORIAL

MUSIC LISTENING AND MUSIC MAKING IN THE TREATMENT

OF NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS AND IMPAIRMENTS

GOTTFRIED SCHLAUG

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School

ECKART ALTENMÜLLER

University of Music and Drama,Hanover, Germany

MICHAEL THAUT

Colorado State University

Emerging research over the last decade has shown thatlong-term music training and associated sensorimotorskill learning can be a strong stimulant for neuroplasticchanges in the developing as well as in the adult brain,affecting both white and gray matter as well as fore-brain and hindbrain structures. Making music, includ-ing singing and dancing, leads to a strong coupling ofperception and action mediated by sensory, motor, andmultimodal brain regions. Music making also affectsimportant sound relay stations in the brainstem andthalamus either in a top-down or bottom-up fashion.Furthermore, listening to music and making musicprovokes motions and emotions, increases between-subject communications and interactions, and is expe-rienced as a joyous, pleasurable, and rewarding activitythrough activity changes in the amygdala, ventral stria-tum (i.e., nucleus accumbens), and other componentsof the limbic system.

These new insights from brain research using musiclistening and music making experiments have changedour understanding of how music can be used in reha-bilitation and how to incorporate music into therapiesthat are geared towards retraining and rewiring aninjured brain. Neurologically based approaches tomusic therapy techniques are now emerging and arebeing implemented in well-designed studies. Musicmakes rehabilitation not only more enjoyable, but alsocan provide an alternative entry point into a “broken”brain system, and can remediate impaired neuralprocesses or neural connections by engaging and link-ing brain centers that might otherwise not be linkedtogether. Why is music so special and how does music

listening and music making achieve rehabilitativeeffects? Music is a strong multimodal stimulus thatsimultaneously transmits visual, auditory, and motoricinformation to a specialized brain network consistingof fronto-temporo-parietal regions whose componentsare also part of the putative human mirror neuron sys-tem. Among other functions, this network of brainregions might support the coupling between perceptu-al events (visual or auditory) and motor actions (leg,arm/hand, or vocal/articulatory actions). In this con-text one can think of music also as a cognitive brainlanguage. As such, it may couple perception and cogni-tion and enhance attention, memory, and executivecontrol. Music might represent a special vehicle thatallows us to engage components of this mirror neuronsystem while affecting the pleasure and reward systemsin the brain at the same time.

Music-based experimental interventions similar toother experimental interventions need to be groundedon a neurobiological understanding of how and whyparticular brain systems could be affected and theefficacy of these experimental interventions shouldbe assessed quantitatively and in an unbiased way asone would require with any other experimental inter-vention. This special issue of Music Perception wasplanned to highlight, review, and present new evi-dence of the special role that music listening andmusic making has in the treatment of various neuro-logical disorders and impairments. Although we werenot able to discuss every possible intervention or dis-order, we intended to provide a broad cross-section ofneurological disorders for which there already is someevidence that music listening and music making hasa beneficial effect in case series, open-label treatmentstudies, or even randomized clinical trials. A neuro-scientific basis for music-based interventions anddata derived from randomized clinical trials are impor-tant components in establishing and further guidingneurologically and neurobiologically based musictherapies that might have the power to enhance brainrecovery processes, ameliorate the effects of develop-mental brain disorders, and facilitate neuroplasticityin general.

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We would like to thank all the contributing authorsfor allowing us to highlight the broad spectrum of neu-rological disorders and impairments that might behelped by forms of music listening and music making.Furthermore, we would like to thank all the reviewers

who provided constructive comments to the authors. Inaddition, we wish to express our appreciation to MusicPerception and editor Lola L. Cuddy for inspiring us toput this special issue together to highlight the impor-tance of music for neurological disorders.

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