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Explain How Music Affects The Brain

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How Music Affects The Brain Music has been affecting society throughout history. The influence of music on modern society can easily be seen today. Music has been proven to have many influences on humans both negatively and positively. Music can alter a person’s mood, and has shown to cause physical responses in many people. Music has the power to strengthen or weaken emotions from events like a funereal. Music affects the brain by influencing behavior, being therapeutic, and helps the mind process information more efficiently. It has been scientifically proven that from birth humans are responsive to music. These studies also have shown that music may even help patients prone to disease or stroke. Elena Mannes, a lead scientist in brain research, has tracked a human relationship with music throughout a person’s life. She believes that …show more content…

Many different parts of the brain and body are stimulated by the sounds of music. “Psychological study of music is based on this reason. Studies have found that music can reduce stress, aid relaxation, alleviate depression, and help store and recall information among other functions” (Kirkweg). Music helps reduce the amount of stress in the body by lowering the amount of the hormone cortisone. We see this method today by music therapy. Music therapy is musical activities being done to change the behavior of the patient and improve their everyday life. Music therapy is also being used to help people with memory problems. The brain is made of a very complex system of neural networks that send information to one part of the brain to another. Through studying neural networks they have discovered that there are many other factors that affect this. Theses factors include attention, stress, emotion, music, and age. Music improves the efficiency of how the brain transfers information. This means that music is improving the memory for patients with memory

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