Petr Janata knows why hearing our favorite old songs brings on fond memories.  He’s just explained how the part of our brains wired for memory is linked to the part wired for music.  These two processes share the same part of the brain.  When the old favorites start to play, it stimulates the part of the brain that conjures up nostalgic thoughts.

While this information seems simple and amusing to most people, it hints at hope for a new and very pleasant therapy for Alzheimer’s patients.  These patients eventually develop a strong emotional response to music and it’s one of the last emotional responses they lose.  Since old songs bring back long-ago memories, faces, and events, Alzheimer’s patients probably cling to these musical moments as vigorously as possible.

Janata is an associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, Center for Mind and Brain.  His study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to ‘watch’ as 13 university students listened to some of their favorite songs from childhood.

After each tune, study subjects identified the familiar music and rated the associated memory, if any, as pleasant or not and if it was linked in their minds to a particular memory.

Once removed from the fMRI equipment, students were encouraged to recall in better detail and describe the memories evoked by the old favorites.

Seems the stronger the emotional response, the more vivid the memory.  The songs generating the strongest response while talking about it were also the tunes that generated the most action in the medial prefrontal cortex, as noted during the fMRI.  It’s this part of the brain that processes both memory and the awareness of music.

Janata dares to imagine the day when Alzheimer’s patients will use MP3 players and playlists personally customized to produce the strongest and most pleasant memories as a form of music therapy for their condition.  Such a musical stroll down memory lane might prove to be an ideal strategy for improving the quality of living for these patients.

Details of Janata’s study were published in the February 24 issue of the medical journal, ‘Cerebral Cortex.’