Older brains feel ‘reward’ from music, even if they don’t like it: study | 24CA News
The brains of older adults really feel a way of reward when listening to music, even when it’s a music they don’t notably like, a researcher at British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University says.
Sarah Faber stated her work on how wholesome brains reply to music as they age creates a baseline for future analysis on individuals who have Alzheimer’s or dementia to higher perceive these ailments.
“There’s a lot of interest in how to predict who might be going to develop dementia or Alzheimer’s disease and then once people do develop Alzheimer’s and dementia, who is going to respond to treatment and what kind of treatment,” she stated.
“The brain is fascinating, but it doesn’t exist in a jar. It’s attached to a body, that’s attached to an environment, and community, and a social structure.”
The analysis revealed within the journal Network Neuroscience featured 80 members, together with college college students and folks as outdated as 90, who took purposeful MRI scans.
The youthful group of adults had a median age of 19, whereas the opposite group had a median age of 67.
Everyone listened to 24 samples, together with songs they chose themselves, in style music deliberately chosen by researchers and songs composed particularly for the research.
Faber stated they discovered reward sections of the mind have been activated in youthful adults whereas they listened to music they favored or have been aware of, however older adults confirmed the identical space being stimulated even when the music was new to them, or they didn’t prefer it.
“There wasn’t this gatekeeping functionality that we see in younger adults with their auditory network kind of being like, ‘OK, well, if we like this, we get rewards. But if we don’t like this, we don’t get rewards,’” she stated.
“Whereas for older adults, it was similar to, ‘Music! Reward! Yes!’”
Faber, who was a music therapist before becoming a neuroscientist, said research into people with Alzheimer’s might be difficult if somebody is unable to talk or clarify what they’re considering or feeling in a second.
She stated something they will study make the music therapies simpler can be useful, however the advantages transcend that.
“Just understanding … how the brain deals with complex stimuli, through Alzheimer’s, that would be a really good and a very useful bunch of information to get for people that are working in Alzheimer’s, not necessarily just in music,” Faber stated.
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