by ANDREI LONESCU
When country music legend Glen Campbell took the stage during his final tour, his memory was fading fast due to Alzheimer’s disease.
Yet somehow, despite not recognizing his closest loved ones or remembering what day it was, he could still play his guitar and sing every lyric of his greatest hits thanks to the science behind the connection of music and the brain.
The power of music
Rhonda Winegar is a nurse practitioner in neurology and assistant professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. She found Campbell’s uncanny ability to be more than just touching – it sparked her scientific curiosity.
“He kept wandering off, and they’d have to push him back on stage,” noted Winegar. “Yet he could still play all those difficult chords and remember the lyrics to his songs.”
This striking example of music’s resilience in the face of neurodegeneration became the foundation for Winegar’s research into the profound therapeutic power of music.
Her findings, recently published with co-author Dustin Hixenbaugh in The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, reinforce what many have intuitively known for centuries: music isn’t just entertainment – it’s medicine.
Chemistry of the musical experience
“Music delays neurodegeneration in conditions such as Alzheimer’s,” Winegar explained. “Sometimes, patients with memory issues get anxious and upset, which can start affecting their speech and ability to communicate. But if they’re able to sing, they can express their feelings, which helps reduce anxiety, stress, and depression.”
While Winegar’s work highlights music’s ability to soothe and strengthen neurological function, a recent imaging study from the Turku PET Center in Finland delves even deeper. The study dives into the molecular chemistry of the musical experience.
Published in the European Journal of Nuclear Medicine, the research has found that listening to favorite music activates the brain’s opioid system, the same reward system that governs pleasure from food, social bonding, and even pain relief.
Pleasure pathways in the brain
“These results show for the first time directly that listening to music activates the brain’s opioid system,” said Vesa Putkinen from the University of Turku.
“The release of opioids explains why music can produce such strong feelings of pleasure, even though it is not a primary reward necessary for survival or reproduction, like food or sexual pleasure.”
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