History of Music Therapy and Its Contemporary Applications in Cardiovascular Diseases

Abstract

Contrary to what is commonly believed, music therapy is an old cure, the use of which is lost in the mists of time. Music always has been perceived to have particular healing powers, and the entire history of civilization contains aspects that link music to physical and mental healing. It seems that the adoption of music for therapeutic purposes harks back to a distant past, probably since the Paleolithic period: it was believed that listening to music could affect the behavior of human beings. In later centuries, the concept of "musical organ-tropism" was born and developed, because according to the type of music, one may affect the cardiovascular, respiratory, and neuroendocrine systems. Studies have shown that music can powerfully evoke and modulate emotions and moods, along with changes in heart activity, blood pressure, and breathing. Indeed, the following findings arise from the literature: heart and respiratory rates are higher in response to exciting music than in the case of tranquilizing music. In addition, music produces activity changes in brain structures (amygdala, hypothalamus, insular and orbitofrontal cortex) known to modulate heart function. This article provides a careful overview of music therapy history from prehistory to the present and a review of the latest applications of music therapy in cardiovascular diseases.

Rapid Brain Responses to Familiar vs. Unfamiliar Music – an EEG and Pupillometry study

“…Specifically, we aim to understand how quickly listeners’ brains can identify snippets from a familiar and personally relevant piece of music from among unfamiliar snippets, and pinpoint the neural signatures of this recognition. Beyond basic science, understanding the brain correlates of music recognition is useful for various music-based therapeutic interventions 12 . For instance, there is a growing interest in exploiting music to break through to dementia patients for whom memory for music appears well preserved despite an otherwise systemic failure of memory systems 13,14 .…”

Impact of BMGIM Music Therapy on Emotional State in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Randomized Controlled Trial

“…Such is the case of cognitive-behavioral psychological treatment [3,4,32], mindfulness [33][34][35][36][37], guided imagery, and relaxation training [38]. Music therapy has also proven effective in treating different chronic diseases and their effects [39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46]. Music therapy comprises various models and methods [47,48].…”

Judgement of valence of musical sounds by hand and by heart, a machine learning paradigm for reading the heart

“…In the same way, HRV has also been employed to assess the effects of sound and music on the heart [ 18 ], where research on this topic has gained importance in the recent time since it makes it possible to understand and take advantage of the music benefits [ [19] , [20] ], as the decreasing in the heart rate and in the systolic and diastolic blood pressure [ 21 ]. Thus, music has been studied from several perspectives.…”

“…In like manner, some researchers have developed systems based on deep learning to create music [ 23 ]. In addition to fields as Computational Musicology [ 24 ] and Interactive music [ 25 ], the use of music in health sciences has also been examined to manage several diseases or conditions such as autism [ 26 ], depression [ 27 ], cancer [ 28 ], and cardiovascular diseases [ 20 ].…”