Problem:

According to a harvard study Half of World’s Population Will Experience a Mental Health Disorder | Harvard Medical School , roughly half the population will at some point experience a mental illness. Thats around 4.1 billion people. If we could help even a fraction of those people, then we should try. People with mental dissorders are lacking in white and grey matter, something my study about says music can help with.

Thesis:

If people with most mental disorders experience white and grey matter reductions, then can listening to or playing music help those patients in the long run because of how it strengthens the brain's pathways and increases grey and white matter?

My method for creating my project is as follows:

1) Do background reasearch on the brain (to have en excelent understanding of it's parts and their functions).

2) Create a hypothesis.

3) Do initial reasearch on music history and different eras of music.

4) Do reasearch on what parts of the brain in musicians have more developed white and gray matter.

5) Do reasearch on where the white and grey matter discrepencies of mental conditions take place in the brain

6) Compare and contrast the data sets.

7) Create a conclusion and a hypothesis why it is so.

Introduction:

Music History:

Music has been around for a long time and has curiously been created by several different isolated cultures. Archeological evidence dated 40 000 years ago of a bone with holes possibly acting as a flute, suggests that music was a part of the lives of ancient cultures. An example is an ancient Athenian vase dated circa 440 bce was found bearing a flute player. That shows that the ancient Athenians were creating instruments. By circa 450 CE-1450 CE (the middle ages) there is evidence that Europe was using music notation. It was the style to write songs about love and religion. The middle ages typically had monophony (a single melodic line) whereas during the renaissance polyphonic music was made with at least 2 melodies.

Polyphonic melodies:

Polyphonic melodies stimulate more brain pathways than monophonic or homophonic (which is monophonic with chords added). A good example is Pachbel's canon.  A canon is when you have the same melody but one instrument group starts it later than the others, this creates a polyphonic melody.

Is music good for your brain:

While listening to loud music obviously has negative effects on your hearing, overall music is useful. Listening to (or making) music increases blood flow to brain regions that generate and control emotions. The limbic system, which is involved in processing emotions and controlling memory, “lights” up when our ears perceive music.

 

What am I reasearching:

My reasearch compares the white and grey matter discrepencies of people with mental disorders to the excess grey and white matter of musicians. But first what is white and gray matter, and why is having a deficit bad?

 

What is white and gray matter, and why is having a deficit bad:

 According to https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/24831-grey-matter "Grey matter is a type of tissue in your brain and spinal cord (central nervous system) that plays a crucial role in allowing you to function normally from day to day. It consists of high concentrations of neuronal bodies, axon terminals (endings) and dendrites." Simply, white matter is is the connections bettween the grey matter dendrites. It is called white matter because of it's white color given to it by its casing of myelin. White and grey matter makes up your brain, having a deficit of white and grey matter can lead to mental decline having patients possibly strugling with a  worse memory or a harder time focusing. The more a dendrite/neuron path is used, the stronger and denser it gets. When the pathway is not frecuently used it deteriorates and gets weaker. That is why it is important to stimulate different parts of your brain frequently.

F1-Musicians 

 ____________ peak coordinates ___________

x	y	z	t value	region
-62	-40	-16	5.45	Left inferior temporal gyrus
-28	-21	63	4.68	Left precentral gyrus
-39	-28	3	4.32	Left Heschl's gyrus
-42	50	0	4.10	Left inferior frontal gyrus
60	-40	-20	4.69	Rigtht inferior temporal gyrus
27	-50	60	4.55	Right superior parietal cortex
28	-22	62	4.32	Right precentral gyrus
10	-21	57	3.86	Right medial frontal gyrus

"t value= The t-value, or t-score, is a ratio of the difference between the mean of the two sample sets and the variation that exists within the sample sets." -T-Test: What It Is With Multiple Formulas and When To Use Them. 

The figure above showcases the peak coordinates in which musicians have excess grey matter. 

A=65 yr old healthy musician                                               B=63 yr old healthy non-musician

Both participants have similar age IQ and other possibly outlying factors. The musician (A) shows larger right and left arcuate fasciculus. This tells us that playing music must’ve strengthened both arcuate fasciculus (left more than right).

The figure above showcases the places of the brain that light up on an fmri scan. With a z value of 11, music perseption is mainly done in the 

Musicians have more activation of frontal regions bilaterally, particularly in the inferior frontal gyrus

F2-BPD and Bipolar

The orange showcases the places where bipolar disorder patiants have less gray and white matter against a healthy control (b).

Citation	Disorder	Patients/ healthy controls	Methods	Results
Rossi R, Lanfredi M, Pievani M, Boccardi M, Beneduce R, Rillosi L, Giannakopoulos P, Thompson PM, Rossi G, Frisoni GB. Volumetric and topographic differences in hippocampal subdivisions in borderline personality and bipolar disorders. Psychiatry Res. 2012 Aug-Sep;203(2-3):132-8. doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2011.12.004. Epub 2012 Sep 1. PMID: 22944368.  Volumetric and topographic differences in hippocampal subdivisions in borderline personality and bipolar disorders	BPD   BD	26/15/41	1.5T MRI, manual tracing of hippocampi, SPM processing	Patients with BPD exhibited decreased volumes of the bilateral hippocampi, whereas BD patients displayed reductions in the right hippocampus volume.

F3-Generalized  Anxiety Disorder

My study on how mental disorders negatively affect grey and white matter in the brain comes with an outlier, generalised anxiety disorder.

In the tables above GAD subjects showed higher GM volumes compared with HC subjects in the right striatum and right superior temporal pole, while no areas showed significantly lower GM volumes. This means that patients with GAD have more GM volumes than that of a healthy control. GAD is often linked with a higher IQ, possibly because their brain has a heightened response to triggers which can lead to worry and brood. This can heighten one's anxiety levels leading their brain to work more, possibly being the reason people with GAD have on average a higher IQ.

Sources	Disorder	Patients/ healthy controls	Methods	Results
Pine DS, Muehlhan M, Lueken U, Steudte-Schmiedgen S, Beesdo-Baum K. Gray and white matter volume abnormalities in generalized anxiety disorder by categorical and dimensional characterization. Psychiatry Res. 2015 Dec 30;234(3):314-20. doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2015.10.009. Epub 2015 Oct 13. PMID: 26490569; PMCID: PMC5103633. white matter volume abnormalities in generalized anxiety disorder by categorical and dimensional characterization - PMC.	GAD	19/24	A 3-Tesla Trio-Tim MRI whole-body scanner (Siemens, Erlangen, Germany) with a 12-channel head coil was used.	GAD subjects showed higher GM volumes compared with HC subjects in the right striatum and right superior temporal pole, while no areas showed Significantly lower GM volumes

 

 

 

F4-Schizophrenia

Discussion

I would like to propose a new word for a type of melody. When you combine two polyphonic melodies, it creates what is technically a polyphonic melody - but at the same time - is different. I propose the name multiphonic melodies as a multiphonic is a when multiple notes are played at the smae time by the same instrument. I would like the name multiphonic melodies to be used when two or more polyphonic melodies are played in an orchestra or ensemble.

Limitaion

Music cannot solve everything, but listening to music frequently is a start towards strengthening your brain pathways and helping the mental decline that comes with most mental disorders, especially schizophrenia.

Sources of error

Although all my sources were double checked, mistakes do happen in reasearch. Since there is no way to know that the reasearch I have collected is 100% reputable, it is important to understad that something might get through the cracks and possibly affect my conclusion.

Future scope

Music therapy is very helpful to people struggling with mental disorders according to many sources including Sonja Aalbers, Laura Fusar-Poli, Ruth E Freeman, Marinus Spreen, Johannes Cf Ket, Annemiek C Vink, Anna Maratos, Mike Crawford, Xi-Jing Chen, and Christian Gold who are reasearchers in Cochrane. Perhaps with the knowledge that music (especialy polyphonic melodies) helps the brain enhance grey and white matter, a different type of music therapy can be developed focusing on helping patients with mental decline.

Conclusion

Listening to music frequently or playing music is not a cure, but it  is a start towards strengthening your brain pathways and helping the mental decline that comes with mainly schizophrenia. 

Sectiona of the brain	Music (Influx GM & WM)	Bipolar DIsorder	Borderline Personality Disorder	Scizophrenia and Scizoaffective disorders
Inferior temporal gyrus	Inferior temporal gyrus L/R
Precentral gyrus	Precentral gyrus L/R
Herschls gyrus	Herschls gyrus L/R
Inferior frontal gyrus	Inferior frontal gyrus L/R			Inferior frontal gyrus L/R
Larsel lobe HV/HVI	Larsel lobe HV/HVI L/R
Motor cortex	Motor cortex
Superior parietal cortex	Superior parietal cortex R
Medial frontal gyrus	Medial frontal gyrus R			Medial prefrontal cortex L/R
Insular lobe		Insular lobe L		Insular lobe L/R
Hippocampi	Hippocampi L/R	Hippocampi R	Hippocampi L/R	HIppocampi R
Frontal gyrus	Frontal gyrus			Middle orbital gyrus
Anterior cingulate Cortex				Anterior cingulate Cortex L
Caudate nucleus				Caudate nucleus
Olfactory cortex				Olfactory cortex
Angular gyrus				Angular gyrus

The graph above is not empty, it merely showcases the places where musicans have an influx of GM and WM and compares it to places where patients have less. As shown musicians have more grey and white matter in their inferior frontal gyrus, medial prefrontal cortex, and billateral hippocami, while patients with schizophrenia have deficits of grey and white matter in all of those three spots. Patients with bipolar and BPD also have deficits in the hippocampi billaterally and right respectively.

Inferior frontal gyrus L/R

The left inferior frontal gyrus is responsible for languages and grammar, while the right inferior gyrus is mainly responsible for motor pauses, working memory, and unconsious and consious cognition.

Medial prefrontal cortex L/R

Social cognition, decision-making, emotional processing and regulation, learning,and reward and motivation are all helped by the medial prefrontal cortex.

Billateral Hippocampi

The billateral hippocampi are used in storing memory and spacial awarness.

Middle orbital gyrus

The middle orbital gyrus is in the frontal gyrus and is used for processing odors and emotional expression.

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I would like to acknowledge my science teacher Mrs. Drozda, who helped me get my project set up on this platform and my religion teacher Mrs Lukowski for letting me borrow a trifold.