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Background Music therapy has been shown to be effective for multiple clinical endpoints associated with substance use disorder such as craving reduction, emotion regulation, depression, and anxiety, but there are a lack of studies investigating those effects in UK Community Substance Misuse Treatment Services (CSMTSs). Furthermore, there is a demand for identifying music therapy mechanisms of change and related brain processes for substance use disorder treatment. The present study aims to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of music therapy and a pre-test, post-test, and in-session measurement battery in a CSMTS. Methods Fifteen participants, from a community service based in London, will take part in a mixed-methods non-blind randomized-controlled trial. Ten participants will receive six-weekly sessions of music therapy in addition to the standard treatment offered by the CSMTS—five of them will receive individual music therapy and five of them will receive group music therapy—while a further five participants will act as a control group receiving standard treatment only. Satisfaction and acceptability will be evaluated in focus groups with service users and staff members following the final treatment session. Moreover, attendance and completion rates will be monitored throughout the intervention. Subjective and behavioral indexes will be assessed before and after the interventions to explore the effects of music therapy on craving, substance use, symptoms of depression and anxiety, inhibitory control, and will be correlated with associated neurophysiological signatures. In-session analysis of two individual music therapy sessions will serve to explore how music and emotion are processed in the brain within the therapy. The data collected at each step will be included in an intention-to-treat analysis basis. Discussion This study will provide a first report on the feasibility of music therapy as an intervention for participants with substance use disorder engaged within a community service. It will also provide valuable information regarding the implementation of a multifaceted methodology that includes neurophysiological, questionnaire-based, and behavioral assessments in this cohort. Notwithstanding the limitation of a small sample size, the present study will provide novel preliminary data regarding neurophysiological outcomes in participants with substance use disorder that received music therapy. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrails.gov, NCT0518061, Registered 6 January 2022, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05180617

Nonverbal interpersonal synchronization has been established as an important factor in therapeutic relationships, and the differentiation of who leads the interaction appears to provide further important information. We investigated nonverbal synchrony – quantified as the coordination of body movement between patient and therapist. This was observed in music therapy dyads, while engaged in verbal interaction before and after a music intervention in the session. We further examined associations with patients’ self-reported therapy readiness at the beginning of the session. Eleven neurological in-patients participated in this study. Our results showed an increase in both nonverbal synchrony and patient leading after the music intervention. A significant negative correlation was found between self-reported therapy readiness and nonverbal synchrony after the music intervention. These findings point to the empathic ability of the music therapist to sense patients’ therapy readiness. Higher patient leading in nonverbal synchrony after the music intervention may thus indicate that the music intervention may have allowed dyadic entrainment to take place, potentially increasing self-regulation and thus empowering patients.

Recent findings indicate that Music Therapy (MT) and Music-Based Interventions (MBIs) may reduce craving symptoms in people with Substance Use Disorders (SUD). However, MT/MBIs can lead SUD clients to recall memories associated with their drug history and the corresponding strong emotions (addiction memories). Craving is a central component of SUD, possibly linked to relapse and triggered by several factors such as the recall of memories associated with the drug experience. Therefore, to address the topic of what elements can account for an improvement in craving symptoms after MT/MBIs, we conducted a narrative review that (1) describes the brain correlates of emotionally salient autobiographical memories evoked by music, (2) outlines neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies suggesting how the experience of craving may encompass the recall of emotionally filled moments, and (3) points out the role of perineuronal nets (PNNs) in addiction memory neuroplasticity. We highlight how autobiographical memory retrieval, music-evoked autobiographical memories, and craving share similar neural activations with PNNs which represent a causal element in the processing of addiction memory. We finally conclude by considering how the neuroplastic characteristics of addiction memory might represent the ground to update and/or recalibrate, within the therapy, the emotional content related to the recall.

Recent studies highlight the role of attention (i.e., executive attention and joint attention) in the negative association between children’s externalizing behavior problems (EBPs) and self-regulation. In music therapy improvisation, “Motifs” represent a repeated and meaningful use of freely improvised or structured music. They have been reported to be effective in drawing attention toward joint musical engagement. This study aimed to examine the effects of clinically derived motifs on the attention of a child with EBPs. Video microanalysis of four therapy sessions was employed. Interaction segments with/without motifs were then selected for analysis: (a) Executive attention measurement: a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to examine the effects of Motifs (Factor I) across sessions (Factor II) on the duration of interaction segments. (b) Joint attention measurement: another two-way ANOVA investigated the effects of these two factors on the duration of joint attentive responses in each segment. Results showed that (a) the segments with Motifs tended to decrease in duration throughout the sessions, while (b) these segments showed a significant increase in proportions of joint attentional responses. These findings suggest a positive effect of Motifs on enhancing efficiency of joint attention execution over time, indicating the child’s recognition of the Motifs through learning.

Introduction: Therapeutic Instrumental Music Performance (TIMP) is well suited for upper limb rehabilitation following stroke. Published protocols serve to inform clinicians on intervention design and delivery. However, few case studies are available that address patient suitability, protocol modifications to support treatment adherence and suitability of home environment.\ud \ud Methods: Two case studies from a small randomized controlled trial illustrate TIMP protocol modifications and considerations required for home delivery. Qualitative, quantitative and observational data report on participants‘ outcomes and engagement with six weeks of bi-weekly exercises. TIMP adaptations to enhance audio-motor synchronization are described.\ud \ud Results: Outcomes for the less impaired participant with fewer complex health needs were significantly better after six weeks, particularly pinch grip (1 peg in 20 seconds to 15/120). The second participant improved on the water pouring task: 44 seconds to 13.16.\ud \ud Discussion: Severity of stroke and impairment are major factors influencing treatment outcomes. Flexibility in the TIMP protocols, such as emphasizing the underlying pulse and building the dynamic contour, aids treatment adherence and movement synchrony. It is essential to assess homes for access, sound containment and space. Outcome measures for detecting compensatory movement, smoothness and velocity of movement are needed to better inform treatment effects.

Objective:\ud To assess the feasibility of a randomized controlled trial to evaluate music therapy as a home-based intervention for arm hemiparesis in stroke.\ud \ud Design:\ud A pilot feasibility randomized controlled trial, with cross-over design. Randomization by statistician using computer-generated, random numbers concealed in opaque envelopes.\ud \ud Setting:\ud Participants’ homes across Cambridgeshire, UK.\ud \ud Subjects:\ud Eleven people with stroke and arm hemiparesis, 3–60 months post stroke, following discharge from community rehabilitation.\ud \ud Interventions:\ud Each participant engaged in therapeutic instrumental music performance in 12 individual clinical contacts, twice weekly for six weeks.\ud \ud Main measures:\ud Feasibility was estimated by recruitment from three community stroke teams over a 12-month period, attrition rates, completion of treatment and successful data collection. Structured interviews were conducted pre and post intervention to establish participant tolerance and preference. Action Research Arm Test and Nine-hole Peg Test data were collected at weeks 1, 6, 9, 15 and 18, pre and post intervention by a blinded assessor.\ud \ud Results:\ud A total of 11 of 14 invited participants were recruited (intervention n = 6, waitlist n = 5). In total, 10 completed treatment and data collection.\ud \ud Conclusion:\ud It cannot be concluded whether a larger trial would be feasible due to unavailable data regarding a number of eligible patients screened. Adherence to treatment, retention and interview responses might suggest that the intervention was motivating for participants

When people listen to music, various brain processes are involved, including those that assess the rhythmic, tonal, timbral, and structural properties of the music-which we will call cognitive processing-as well as other processes, such as affective processing. Cognitive processing can, for example, allow us to implicitly notice when a note is out of key or out of rhythm by building a musical context out of the incoming sound stream. By affective processing, on the other hand, we refer to those brain processes that allow us to perceive or feel emotion in response to music, and to feel enjoyment of music or even find it beautiful. Only few studies on the processing of musical sounds have differentiated the psychological mechanisms underlying cognitive and affective processes (Gagnon & Peretz, 2000), as have some studies of other types of aesthetic stimuli, such as pictures (Mandler & Shebo, 1983). Even less is known about the brain correlates of those processes and their chronometric succession (e.g., see reviews by Brattico, Bogert, & Jacobsen, 2013; Jacobsen, 2006).Our current understanding of the information processing of music in the brain is mostly based on cognitive responses to musical sound patterns and chords, such as discrimination of sound feature changes or detection of tonality violations (for reviews, see the books by Koelsch [2012] and Peretz & Zatorre [2003]). A useful method to study the chronometric ordering of stages in auditory processing is the event-related potential (ERP), a neurophysiological signal elicited in response to a sensory or behavioral event, which comprises several components that are supposed to originate from distinct neuronal populations, (Luck, 2014). The ERP is measured by averaging time-accurate electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings over many trials of stimuli and across tens of participants. ERP studies have evidenced the early sensory encoding of sound features in the primary auditory cortex, as indexed by the N1 component, which peaks centrally at around 100 ms after stimulus onset (Naatanen & Picton, 1987). The subsequent stage of predictive coding and error detection (the error between predictions based on the regularities in the auditory stimulation and the incoming sound) is indexed by the mismatch negativity (MMN) component of the ERP, which is elicited by a feature change in a repeating stimulus sequence and peaks frontally around 150 to 200 ms after stimulus onset (Friston, 2005; Naatanen, Gaillard, & Mantysalo, 1978; Picton, Alain, Otten, Ritter, & Achim, 2000). The change can be simple, such as a sequence of identical tones being interrupted by a tone of a different frequency (Sams, Paavilainen, Alho, & Naatanen, 1985), or it can be more abstract, such as the violation of basic rules in tone patterns or combinations (e.g., the contrast between descending and ascending intervals: Saarinen, Paavilainen, Schoger, Tervaniemi, & Naatanen, 1992; or major and minor chords: Virtala et al., 2011).Cognitive processing of more complex rules involving an integration of sounds over longer time spans has been associated with the early right anterior negativity (ERAN), as well as the later P300. Similarly to the MMN, the ERAN peaks frontally around 200 ms after the onset of an unexpected musical sound; however, whereas the MMN is based on regularities between presently occurring successive sounds, the ERAN is a marker of unusual chord successions that depends on representations of harmonic regularities from long-term memory and can be caused by longdistance music-syntactic dependencies (Koelsch, Gunter, Friederici, & Schroger, 2000; Koelsch & Jentschke, 2010). A later ERP component related to chord processing is the P300, an endogenous, attentive response related to judgment of a stimulus (Squires, Squires, & Hillyard, 1975). The P300 peaks parietally 220 to 500 ms after the onset of a target tone in a discrimination task (Polich, 2007), of an incongruous tone presented at the end of a melody (e. …

This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (Intervention). The objectives are as follows: Main objective To assess the effects of music therapy, as a primary or a supportive intervention, compared to standard care, wait-list control or no treatment, for people with substance use disorders, to reduce substance use,the severity of substance dependence/abuse, psychological symptoms, and substance craving; to enhance motivation for change/treatment; and for retention in treatment. Secondary objective To assess the impact of the number of music therapy sessions on study outcomes.

Music is a complex, dynamic stimulus with an un-paralleled ability to stimulate a global network of neural activity involved in attention, emotion, memory, communication, motor co-ordination and cognition. As such, it provides neuroscience with a highly effective tool to develop our understanding of brain function, connectivity and plasticity. Increasingly sophisticated neuroimaging technologies have enabled the expanding field of music neuroscience to reveal how musical experience, perception and cognition may support neuroplasticity, with important implications for the rehabilitation and assessment of those with acquired brain injuries and neurodegenerative conditions. Other studies have indicated the potential for music to support arousal, attention and emotional regulation, suggesting therapeutic applications for conditions including ADHD, PTSD, autism, learning disorders and mood disorders. In common with neuroscience, the music therapy profession has advanced significantly in the past 20 years. Various interventions designed to address functional deficits and health care needs have been developed, alongside standardised behavioural assessments. Historically, music therapy has drawn its evidence base from a number of contrasting theoretical frameworks. Clinicians are now turning to neuroscience, which offers a unifying knowledge base and frame of reference to understand and measure therapeutic interventions from a biomedical perspective. Conversely, neuroscience is becoming more enriched by learning about the neural effects of ‘real world’ clinical applications in music therapy. While neuroscientific imaging methods may provide biomarking evidence for the efficacy of music therapy interventions it also offers important tools to describe time-locked interactive therapy processes and feeds into the emerging field of 3 June 2017 | Dialogues in Music Therapy and Music Neuroscience social neuroscience. Music therapy is bound to the process of creating and experiencing music together in improvisation, listening and reflection. Thus the situated cognition and experience of music developing over time and in differing contexts is of interest in time series data. We encouraged researchers to submit papers illustrating the mutual benefits of dialogue between music therapy and other disciplines important to this field, particularly neuroscience, neurophysiology, and neuropsychology. The current eBook consists of the peer reviewed responses to our call for papers.

Electroencephalographic (EEG) frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) and frontal midline (FM) theta have been suggested as biomarkers for depression and anxiety, but have mostly been assessed in small and non-clinical studies. In a clinical sample of 79 adults with depression (ICD-10: F32), resting EEG and scales of depression (MADRS) and anxiety (HADS-A) were measured at intake and after 3 months. FAA and FM theta values were referenced to a normative population database. Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and correlations with psychiatric tests were examined. Reliability was sufficient. However, FAA and FM theta values were close to the general population, and correlations with psychiatric tests were mostly small and non-significant, with the exception of FAA on F7-F8 z-scores and HADS-A. We conclude that the validity of FAA and FM theta and therefore their potential as biomarkers for depression and anxiety remain unclear.

Cannabis is known to change auditory perception and music appreciation as many musicians and music listeners report in narratives, interviews and biographies. An ethnographic pre/post study was conducted in a habituated naturalistic setting, combining qualitative and quantitative methods with four single case studies. Physiological results were gained with a mobile bedside EEG imaging machine in an authentic setting of the consumer's life-world. Results represent explorative data of participants' spontaneous EEG-activity, referable to results of psychological and medical studies. Increasing Alpha-signal strength in parietal association cortex and significant Theta band changes in temporal and on Alpha in occipital areas seem to represent an intraindividual constant EEG correlate of temporarily intensified attention ("high"), resulting in an altered music perception by hyperfocusing on acoustic space and broadened insight into the "space between the notes." THC has a measurable influence on cerebral music processing and seems to enhance acoustic perception temporarily.

An explorative study on cannabis and music perception is presented, conducted in a qualitative and quantitative way in a habituated setting. EEG-brainmapping data (4 subjects; rest-pre/post listening; 28 EEG traces; smoked cannabis containing 20 mg delta-9-THC with tobacco) were averaged and analyzed with a T-Test and a visual topographic schedule. Compared to pre-THC-rest and pre-THC-music, the post-THC-music EEG showed a rise of alpha percentage and power in parietal cortex on four subjects, while other frequencies decreased in power. Comparing pre/post music EEGs, differences (p < 0.025) were also found in the right fronto-temporal cortex on theta, and on alpha in left occipital cortex. Results represent an inter-individual constant EEG correlate of altered music perception, hyperfocusing on the musical time-space and cannabis-induced changes on perception of musical acoustics. Cannabis might be of help for hearing impaired persons.

Electroencephalographic (EEG) frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) and frontal midline (FM) theta have been suggested as biomarkers for depression and anxiety, but have mostly been assessed in small and non-clinical studies. In a clinical sample of 79 adults with depression (ICD-10: F32), resting EEG and scales of depression (MADRS) and anxiety (HADS-A) were measured at intake and after 3 months. FAA and FM theta values were referenced to a normative population database. Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and correlations with psychiatric tests were examined. Reliability was sufficient. However, FAA and FM theta values were close to the general population, and correlations with psychiatric tests were mostly small and non-significant, with the exception of FAA on F7-F8 z-scores and HADS-A. We conclude that the validity of FAA and FM theta and therefore their potential as biomarkers for depression and anxiety remain unclear.

Music has been used since ancient times in healing rituals. It has been played for people to induce altered states of consciousness (ASC), which change the focus of attention, mood, and thoughts about the world and the self. Music and altered states are connected in various ways concerning context, personal set, socio-ecological setting, and cultural beliefs. Discussion is ongoing as to whether music itself induces the changes via a “trance mechanism” or whether the setting and rituals connected to music are responsible for the induction of ASC. The authors conducted an explorative attempt to represent interdependencies of set and setting, sound and trance through electrophysiological correlation in the topographic spontaneous EEG. They opted for a sound trance induction with the sound of a body monochord (a bed-like stringed instrument producing a droning sound) in the context of a group ritual. In comparison with uninfluenced rest, they found individual changes in spontaneous EEG. Trance reactions to sound were seemingly more determined by the person’s susceptibility to hypnosis as measured by the Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory than by sound alone.

Background Music therapy is frequently offered to individuals suffering from depression. Despite the lack of research into the effects of music therapy on this population, anecdotal evidence suggests that the results are rather promising. The aim of this study is to examine whether improvisational, psychodynamically orientated music therapy in an individual setting helps reduce symptoms of depression and improve other health-related outcomes. In particular, attention will be given to mediator agents, such as musical expression and interaction in the sessions, as well as to the explanatory potential of EEG recordings in investigating emotion related music perception of individuals with depression. Methods 85 adults (18–50 years of age) with depression (ICD-10: F 32 or F33) will be randomly assigned to an experimental or a control condition. All participants will receive standard care, but the experimental group will be offered biweekly sessions of improvisational music therapy over a period of 3 months. A blind assessor will measure outcomes before testing, after 3 months, and after 6 months. Discussion This study aims to fill a gap in knowledge as to whether active (improvisational) music therapy applied to people with depression improves their condition. For the first time in this context, the mediating processes, such as changes in musical expression and interaction during the course of therapy, will be objectively investigated, and it is expected that the results will provide new insights into these processes. Furthermore, the findings are expected to reveal whether music related emotional experiences, as measured by EEG, can be utilized in assessing a depressive client's improvement in the therapy. The size and the comprehensiveness of the study are sufficient for generalizing its findings to clinical practice as well as to further music therapy research. Trial registration ISRCTN84185937