“Study Shows Listening to Classical Music Improves Memory in Mild Cognitive Impairment Patients”

A study by the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) has shown that listen to classical music in the background while they are made memory exercises “It doesn’t get better and it doesn’t get worse” the level of learning of people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

These are the first results of the study. ‘Mozart effect and memory in patients with cognitive impairment (MEM-COG)’financed by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, which points out that the habits of music consumption may conditional the beneficial effect of music on memory, the UOC reported in a statement on Tuesday.

On the contrary, it has also been seen that listening to a music “more activating could have a positive effect” in people who are accustomed to using music as emotional regulator in your day to daywhich opens the possibility to new hypotheses and searches.

The study, published open-label in ‘Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease’has been done with patients from the Neuropsychology Unit of the Hospital de Sant Pau in Barcelona and has had the collaboration of researchers from this hospital, the Concordia University of Canada and the Gregorio Marañón Health Research Institute in Madrid.

The in-depth investigation

The experiments consisted of observing 24 photographs of human faces with the instruction of memorize them and ten minutes later review a new series of images with the previous 24 and 24 new ones to try to identify the ones that had already been seen before.

The first test was done listening to classical music in the information consolidation phase, but not in the recovery phase, while in the second exercise it was repeated with the auditory stimulus in both, “however, in terms of the results, no significant differences were found”. Classical music is used in these exercises because “it is a type of music characterized by being between relaxing and activating and has proven to be more effective to enhance memory“, stated the researcher leading the work, Marco Calabria.

The team wanted to make a third experiment with popular music that was considered more activating than relaxing and an instrumental version of ‘A Ray of Sun’ by Los Diablosand the results suggested that “the use of music as a strategy for the regulation of mood is associated with a better performance of the memory”.

This finding opens the possibility for more research to “continue exploring the role of Interindividual preferences and attitudes towards music in patients with MCI“, and the group plans to continue with the project until the end of 2024.