Researchers from Finland found that the type of music that men and women listen to may provide clues about their mental health.
To manage mood disorder, music therapists use a strategy called guided affect regulation. They know that music has the power to affect emotions and may be utilized to alleviate clinical manifestations of mood disorders like depression.
However, people also listen to music on their own. Self-directed utilization of music in emotion regulation is not completely understood. Some types of music may have unfavorable effects on mental health, and so can non-musical natured modalities like rumination.
In a new study, researchers wanted to determine the link between mental health, habits of listening to music and emotional reactions to music by studying a mix of neuroimaging data and behavioral information.
The authors conducted the study by evaluating numerous factors involved in mental health such as anxiety and depression. The participants stated the manners in which they listen to music to control their emotions through the Music in Mood Regulation (MMR) scale.
After analyzing the self-reported data, the researchers found that the subjects who listen to sad or contentious music to release gloomy feelings, exuded higher anxiety levels, specifically in males. Dr. Suvi Saarikallio, co-author of the study said this kind of music listening lead to the expression of negative perceptions, and not addressing bad mood.
As for the study of the brain's unconscious emotion adjustment, the authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to document the subjects' neural activity while they listen to happy, sad and tense-sounding music clips.
After the test, the researchers found that males who likely listen to music to release their negative emotions had decreased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), found to be a key area in music-emotion processing. The results for females were on the opposite end as those who listen to music to distract themselves of negative feelings have elevated activity in mPFC.
"The mPFC is active during emotion regulation," said professor Elvira Brattico, the senior author of the study. The findings of the study demonstrated a relationship between the style of music listening and mPFC activity, which suggests that some listening types may have chronic impacts on the brain.
"We hope our research encourages music therapists to talk with their clients about their music use outside the session," said Emily Carlson, one of the authors. She added that their team hopes to push everyone to contemplate about how the various types of music listening may benefit or harm them.
The study was published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience on Aug. 26.
Photo: Sascha Kohlmann | Flickr
