Music as Medicine through this world of woe: Focus on Dopamine

Peter Hollens has done it again. What can i say but the boy's got talent! His latest a cappella single "Poor Wayfaring Stranger" was amazingly powerful and moving. Of course with my new found respect for being a "neuro-head" I had to investigate why I was so moved by this music.


This led me to a search on google that resulted in an article from MSNBC.com entitled "To your brain, music is as enjoyable as sex." BINGO!  In this article, the researchers from McGill University focused on just the neurotransmitter, DOPAMINE  that was released during listening to classical music. Among other things, they found that "The brain substance is involved both in anticipating a particularly thrilling musical moment and in feeling the rush from it, researchers found," and "while dopamine normally helps us feel the pleasure of eating or having sex, it also helps produce euphoria from illegal drugs. It's active in particular circuits of the brain."


So wait...just listening to music can make me feel happy? Sure, I think that people have known that for centuries. The adage "Music soothes the savage beast" captures that perfectly.  It seems that dopamine's effects were known in the 1800's by Angelo Masso, an Italian physiologist, and later confirmed that dopamine not only acted as neurotransmitter but worked as a a vasopressor 

WHOAAAA! Wait, dopamine secreted while listening to music creates an entire physiologic experience of pleasure not to mention a potential stir of emotions, depending on the context of the music? Dr. Robert Zatorre of McGill University said "that makes sense: The area linked to anticipation connects with parts of the brain involved with making predictions and responding to the environment, while the area reacting to the peak moment itself is linked to the brain's limbic system, which is involved in emotion.


Dopamine, secreted by the Hypothalamus which is intimately tied in with the Pituitary gland that leads to other glands like the Adrenals, Gonads and Thyroid (the whole Hypothalimic - Pituitiary Axis) is affected by something as common as music? 


Wait! The hypothalamus that is intimately linked to our Autonomic Nervous System that controls bodily functions like heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature is stimulated by MUSIC?


Can music make you happier? Sure does look that way. In an article from WIRED entitled "Music makes your brain happy", Dr. Daniel Levitin, another McGill University adjunct professor, also believes that serotonin and dopamine are involved while listening to music with the ability to act like anti-depressants.  According to Levitin:  ...most people in Western society use music to regulate moods, whether it's playing something peppy in the morning or something soothing at the end of a hard day, or something that will motivate them to exercise.  Joni Mitchell told me that someone once said before there was Prozac, there was her."


I invite you listen to the video below and buy the single from iTunes. Pete is a great musician who, like many musicians, is trying to make a living while following his passion. 


Enjoy and be happy!


Will




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Lyrics

I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger
While traveling through, this world of woe.
Yet there's no sickness, toil nor danger
In that bright land, to which I go.
I'm going there to see my father
I'm going there no more to roam;
I'm just a going over Jordan
I'm just a going over home.

I know dark clouds will gather o'er me
I know my way is rough and steep;
Yet beauteous fields lie just before me
Where God's redeemed, their vigils keep
I'm going there to see my mother
She said she'd meet me when I come;
I'm just a going over Jordan
I'm just a going over home.

I want to wear a crown of Glory
When I get home to that good land
I want to shout Salvation's story
In concert with the Blood-Washed Band

I'm going there to meet my Saviour
To sing his praise forever more;
I'm just a going over Jordan
I'm just a going over home.