Tag Archives: Music

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Biomarkers,cardio training, singing and dancing, and how jokes work.

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This is a long post. Most of the links are to free, full text articles or reports.

Recent advances in Biomarkers for Parkinson’s A review of the advances currently being made in the search for a cure.

INTERVAL TRAINING FOR CARDIOMETABOLIC AND BRAIN HEALTH

 

1. Engaging in interval exercise can boost fitness and improve your mood in a time-efficient manner.

2. Short exercise breaks like climbing the stairs can refocus attention and help maintain productivity in the workplace.

3. Combining interval exercises with motor skill training in a clinical setting can augment the recovery of function.

Dance and Health Training research report   

The aim of this research was to create a best practice model of dance and health continuing professional development (CPD); to create a dynamic, interdisciplinary course of study for dancers who are engaged in facilitating dance across a range of dance genres within health care contexts.

Outcomes of the project:  Full listing of international and national examples of best practice, core literature, key expert practitioners, full course content and delivery requirements are set out in this report.

(Note: specifically related to Ireland).

Sing while you work

This pilot study is the first Irish study of the health and wellbeing benefits of HSE workplace choirs. It is one of few studies to investigate the health and
wellbeing benefits of choir for Health Service Staff internationally.  Qualitative data confirms previous study findings; namely that a workplace choir can promote social connectedness, enjoyment at work, and staff
engagement; reduce stress; and improve perception of health and wellbeing.
Benefits of attending are noticed across workplace communications.

Comparison of two different exercise programs  (abstract only)

After treatment, UPDRS-II scores improved (mean change: EXE, -4.5 points; CYC, -3.2 points). The results for the other outcomes (EXE and CYC, respectively) were: PDQ, 13 and 17%; BDI, -2.5 and -2.1 points; 6MWT, 129.6 and 141.6 m; and EQ-5D, 12 and 9% (all p < 0.05, but there was no difference between groups). EXE vs. CYC resulted in improved SE-ADL (8.4 and 4.0 points, effect size [ES]: 0.12), BBS (8.8 and 4.2 points, ES: 0.44), and 2 measures of posturography (ES: 0.11 and 0.21) (p 0.05).

CONCLUSION:
Two highly different exercise programs resulted in similar improvement of most motor and clinical symptoms in PD patients.

One thing Parkinson’s People do to help cope with  an incurable (so far), progressive, degenerative, neurological disease is to use humor.

The following showed up in the Dance+Parkinson’s search feed, and are included here with a caveat that some of the jokes used to illustrate the ways in which humor works (theoretically) can be be considered offensive.

How do jokes work?

Back before the Internet, there was a Humor list-serve, dedicated to the study of humor and how it works.  The above PDF attempts to address the varieties of jokes, and repeats some potentially offensive ones to illustrate its concepts. Much of the text refers to the following free e-book on the Gutenberg project.

Laughter: an essay on the meaning of humor   by Henri Bergson

 

 

 

Dance for Parkinson's, Music, Parkinson's, Research, Reviews , , , , Leave a comment

Music, Rhythm, etc.

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therapeutic effects of singing on neurological diseases Don’t know if I’ve sent this out before. A review of benefits of singing on PD and other conditions.

“Walking to New Orleans” or rhythmic auditory cues improve gait

Results

Gait variability decreased and prefrontal HbO2 levels increased during cued walking relative to usual

walking. Older adults showed greater HbO2 levels in multiple motor regions during cued walking although the response reduced with repeated exposure. In older adults, lower depression scores, higher cognitive functioning and reduced gait variability were linked with increased HbO2 levels during RAC walking.

Conclusion

These findings suggest that walking improves with RAC in older adults and is achieved through increased activity in multiple cortical areas. The cortical response decline with repeated exposure indicates older adults’ ability to adapt to a new task

 

THE BEAT GOES ON AUDITORY CUES FOR PEOPLE WITH PARKINSON’S DISEASE A Powerpoint presentation that covers everything you might want to know about PD and auditory cues. Basically, folks did as well or better with music than a metronome beat, and enjoyed walking to music better. significant results reported and apparently both CMTs and PTs were in agreement.
 
Not Cure but heal: Music and Medicine  a chapter in a book, but the references are listed, and some of them are available free on PubMed Central

Internal cues better than external in improving gait

Results indicate that internal cueing was associated with improvements in gait velocity, cadence, and stride length in the backward direction, and reduced variability in both forward and backward walking. In comparison, external cueing was
associated with minimal improvement in gait characteristics and a decline in gait stability. People with gait impairment due to aging or neurological decline may benefit more from internal cueing techniques such as singing as compared to external cueing techniques.
Meter and learning (open access article) Both dance and music performers must learn timing patterns (temporal learning, or ‘when‘) along with series of different movements (ordinal learning, or ‘what‘). It has been suggested that the organization of temporal events into regular beat cycles (meter strength) may enhance both temporal and ordinal learning, but empirical evidence is mixed and incomplete. In the present study, we examined meter-strength effects on the concurrent temporal and ordinal learning of sequences. Meter strength enhanced ordinal learning (‘what’) when the concurrent temporal learning was incidental, but it had no effects on temporal learning itself (‘when’). Our findings provide guidelines for dance and music teaching as well as rhythm-based neurological rehabilitation.
 
just catching up on my inbox.
I got rhythm, I got music, and if I quote more than that UMG’s lawyers will probably sue me, too.
Music, Parkinson's, Research, Reviews, Uncategorized , Leave a comment

Music Training and PD

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A Rationale for Muusic Training To Enhance Executive Function in Parkinson’s Disease: An Overview of the Problem

From the abstract:: “Deficits in executive functions (e.g., attention, processing speed) in patients with PD result in gait interference, deficits in emotional processing, loss of functional capacity (e.g., intellectual activity, social participation), and reduced quality of life. ” (for people with Parkinson’s Disease.

The authors note that music listening interventions can help with gait and freezing, but that the effecct of actual musical training on executive functions mentioned above is unknown.

“In piano training, fine motor finger movements activate the cerebellum and supplementary motor areas (SMA) , thereby exercising the CTC network. We hypothesize that exercising the CTC network through music training will contribute to enhanced executive functions. Previous research suggested that music training enhances cognitive performance (i.e., working memory and processing speed) in healthy adults and adults with cognitive impairments. ”

” Previous research suggested that music training enhances cognitive performance (i.e., working memory and processing speed) in healthy adults and adults with cognitive impairments. This review and rationale provides support for the use of music training to enhance cognitive outcomes in patients with Parkinson’s Disease (PD).”

The evidence revewed in the article “presents a compelling case for music training to improve executive functioning for adults with PD.

“First, music training activates the cerebellar-thalamocortical network (CTC) network providing a rerouting to activate executive functions through fine motor activity .”

The authors “hypothesize that exercising the CTC network through music training will contribute to enhanced cognitive performance.

The Movement Disorder Society (MDS) values the identification and intervention of cognitive impairment in adults with PD, and sees it as part of essential care—a need yet to be met.”

“Cognitive interventions that include repeated practice exercising the CTC network through sensorimotor integration may assist patients with PD. While research has shown that music training enhances cognitive performance (i.e., working memory and processing speed) in healthy older adults, there is a need to extend the benefits of music training to patients with PD.”

Please excuse me, time for my keyboard practice.
Dance for Parkinson's, Music, Parkinson's, Research , , Leave a comment

Some references on Dance + Parkinson’s Disease + Singing + Music … for reading and assimilation

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The overall arc of research on music is that it does more than soothe the savagw breast [ it mrnds the mind, provides rhythmic cues and aids in movement and balance, and singing helps with breathing and volume. Here are just three references – the third has to do with autism spectrum disorder, but what the heck, worth a read, and perhaps one can extrapolate to PD, if not generalize…

Evaluating Dancing With Parkinson’s: Reflections from the perspective of a community organization 

The neurochemistry of music

Effects of Dance Therapy

 

 

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Nostalgia can be good for you

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Contrary to what had been thought for many years, psychology as a science has within the last few years done research into nostalgia, and has found that it can be positive in its results.

It has been so good, in fact, that the University of Southampton in the UK has created a Nostalgia Center.

And to do research, they’ve created a Nostalgia scale for measurement.

some other overlapping research involves music and nostalgia

At UC Davis, they study how music and nostalgia interact.

It’s all good.

 

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Music research: a scale to get beyond the non-musician/musician binary classification

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This is just a reference to an article and its abstract, nothing more, nothing less.

Multidimensional measurement of exposure to music in childhood: Beyond the musician/non-musician dichotomy

Hugo Cogo-Moreira, Alexandra Lamont

 

Abstract

Much research in music psychology characterizes the music background of its participants in a dichotomous manner, labeling participants as “musicians” and “non-musicians” or professionals and non-professionals. However, this terminology is inconsistent from study to study, and even more sophisticated measures fail to accurately represent music experiences; moreover, there is no standardized measure suitable for use with younger participants. This article presents a new measure, the Exposure to Music in Childhood Inventory, for capturing the amount and type of exposure to music activities suitable for use with children. Children from public and private school, aged 5 to 13 years old (N = 1006; M = 8.36 years old, SD = 1.5 years) completed the inventory, and through a combination of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis a two-factor solution was obtained. The first factor includes personal music listening activities, home musical environment and the influence of television and the internet; the second reflects more social, active and public elements of music-making, playing an instrument and performing. This scale is suitable for use in a wide range of future research to more accurately assess the kinds of music activities children have access to in a dimensional way, which can have a bearing on their understanding of music.

 

 

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An NIH-Kennedy Center Initiative to Explore Music and the Mind

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Link to full article:  http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2630954

(I know how to embed a link inside text – just chose not to do it that way this time, thanks for the advice, folks).  Here’s a couple of quotes from the article:

Music is fundamental to the human species in ways that reach beyond entertainment or pastime. In Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks noted that music can “calm us, animate us, comfort us, thrill us, or serve to organize and synchronize us at work or play, [but] it may be especially powerful and have great therapeutic potential for patients with a variety of neurological conditions.”

. . .

Processing music is one of the most cognitively demanding tasks our brains undertake, and creating and performing music is even more complex. We are just beginning to understand what neural processes underlie the effects of active music making, and a better appreciation of these processes would likely enhance understanding of brain responses to other stimuli and tasks. There is already compelling evidence that in children, music training assists development of language skills, auditory processing, and educational achievement compared with untrained peers,2– 4 and anecdotally, many top professionals across different disciplines have musical training in their background.

The article describes the beginning of this initiative and why it is important – it will be interesting to follow this topic in the future.

Here’s the reference list from the article. More good info there.

References

1.

Schlaug  G.  Musicians and music making as a model for the study of brain plasticity.  Prog Brain Res. 2015;217:37-55. doi:10.1016/bs.pbr.2014.11.020PubMed

2.

Hallam  S.  The power of music: its impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people.  Int J Music Educ. 2010;28(3):269-289. doi:10.1177/0255761410370658Article

3.

The Arts and Human Development: Learning Across the Lifespan. National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with US Dept of Health and Human Services. https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/TheArtsAndHumanDev.pdf. 2011. Accessed April 5, 2017.

4.

Moreno  S, Bialystok  E, Barac  R,  et al.  Short-term music training enhances verbal intelligence and executive function.  Psychol Sci. 2011;22(11):1425-1433.PubMedArticle

5.

Bailey  JA, Zatorre  RJ, Penhune  VB.  Early musical training is linked to gray matter structure in the ventral premotor cortex and auditory-motor rhythm synchronization performance.  J Cogn Neurosci. 2014;26(4):755-767.PubMedArticle

6.

Patel  AD.  Why would musical training benefit the neural encoding of speech? the OPERA hypothesis.  Front Psychol. 2011;2:142. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00142PubMedArticle

7.

Norman-Haignere  S, Kanwisher  NG, McDermott  JH.  Distinct cortical pathways for music and speech revealed by hypothesis-free voxel decomposition.  Neuron. 2015;88(6):1281-1296.PubMedArticle

8.

Limb  CJ, Braun  AR.  Neural substrates of spontaneous musical performance: an FMRI study of jazz improvisation.  PLoS One. 2008;3(2):e1679.PubMedArticle

9.

Salimpoor  VN, Benovoy  M, Larcher  K, Dagher  A, Zatorre  RJ.  Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music.  Nat Neurosci. 2011;14(2):257-262.PubMedArticle
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A treasure trove of learning

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Found an interesting site out in Califrnia, an educatioanl institution naturally, with several thought provoking titles availble for reading – originally got to the site by a link to the paper on the positive effects of music therapy .

http://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/caps_thes_all/  is a cresaative commons digital archive for the  California State University, Monterey Bay.:

There is an account registration, but it is not needed to download all of the files. Some of the Capstone projects and theses that I found interesting were:

PDF  A Discussion Regarding Various Animals’ Abilities to Make Music and Move Rhythmically to Songs, Emilie R. Bufford

PDF And The Beat Goes on: The Story of the Drum Machine, Ismael Medina

PDF Engineers Throughout Jazz History, Alex Declet

PDF  Sound Synthesis: Methods and Techniques, Christopher E. Hilker

PDF  The Benefits of Music in Child Development, Dulce-Paola Ixtupe

PDF  The Positive Effect Music Therapy Has on People, Rita Oby Ebo

PDF  Accommodating Students Different Learning Styles with the Use of Technology, Jaime Prieto

PDF   Comparing the Cost of Preamplifiers to Their Sonic Fidelity and Frequency Output, Jackson O. Hunter

PDF  Self-Expression Through Dance in Early Elementary School, Emily Blythe

PDF  The Benefits of Outdoor Education and Experiential Learning in Elementary Schools, Elizabeth F. Valentino

PDF  The Benefits of Outdoor Education Curriculum for Elementary School Students with Nature Deficit Disorder, Madison L. Allen

PDF  Incorporating Music and Arts to Enhancing the Learning Experience of Elementary School Students, Ashley Fernandez

PDF  Making the Garden a Viable Part of Curriculum, Laura Forbes

PDF  Variety for Vocalists, Jonathan Morgadinho

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What are we going to do tonight, Brain?

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Same thing we do every night, Pinkie – SING!!!

Okay, if you caught the reference to Pinkie and the Brain, you probably already like to do stuff that stimulates the neurons with witty references to arcane bits of history, pop culture, and the like. So you won’t be terribly disappointed if I caper about with just a few links to reports on and research on how singing benefits the brain and the lives of those who sing.

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4448634.stm

How singing makes you happy  (summary article and its sources below:

Can Music provoke involuntary body responses?  Now I’ve heard everything – using music to provoke salivation!