Because of permanent use-dependent brain plasticity, all lifelong individuals' experiences are believed to influence the cognitive aging quality. In older individuals, both former and current musical ...practices have been associated with better verbal skills, visual memory, processing speed, and planning function. This work sought for an interaction between musical practice and cognitive aging by comparing musician and non-musician individuals for two lifetime periods (middle and late adulthood). Long-term memory, auditory-verbal short-term memory, processing speed, non-verbal reasoning, and verbal fluencies were assessed. In Study 1, measures of processing speed and auditory-verbal short-term memory were significantly better performed by musicians compared with controls, but both groups displayed the same age-related differences. For verbal fluencies, musicians scored higher than controls and displayed different age effects. In Study 2, we found that lifetime period at training onset (childhood vs. adulthood) was associated with phonemic, but not semantic, fluency performances (musicians who had started to practice in adulthood did not perform better on phonemic fluency than non-musicians). Current frequency of training did not account for musicians' scores on either of these two measures. These patterns of results are discussed by setting the hypothesis of a transformative effect of musical practice against a non-causal explanation.
In Alzheimer patients with a solid musical background, isolated case-reports have reported the maintenance of remarkable musical abilities despite clear difficulties in their verbal memory and ...linguistic functions. These reports have encouraged a number of scientists to undertake more systematic studies which would allow a rigorous approach to the analysis of musical memory in Alzheimer patients with no formal musical background. Although restricted in number, the latest data are controversial regarding preserved musical capacities in Alzheimer patients. Our current review of the literature addresses this topic and advances the hypothesis that the processes of musical memory are function of illness progression. In the earlier stages, the majority of evaluations concerned musical episodic memory and suggested a dysfunction of this memory whereas in the moderate and severe stages, musical semantic memory and implicit learning are the majority of investigations and seemed more resistant to Alzheimer disease. In summary, our current review bring to understand the memory circuits involved and highlight the necessity to adapted the investigational tools employed to conform with the severity of the signs and symptoms of progressive Alzheimer disease in order to demonstrate the preserved musical capacities.
This work explores the cerebral structures involved in the appreciation of music. We studied six young healthy subjects (right handed, French, without musical talent), using a high resolution PET ...device (CTI 953B) and 15O-labelled water. In three tasks, we studied the effects of selective attention to pitch, timbre and rhythm; a final task studied semantic familiarity with tunes (considered as divided attention for pitch and rhythm). These four tasks were performed on the same material (a tape consisting of 30 randomly arranged sequences of notes). We selected a paradigm, without a reference task, to compare the activations produced by attention to different parameters of the same stimulus. We expected that the activations recorded during each task would differ according to the differences in cognitive operations. We found activations preferentially in the left hemisphere for familiarity, pitch tasks and rhythm, and in the right hemisphere for the timbre task. The familiarity task activated the left inferior frontal gyrus, Brodmann area (BA) 47, and superior temporal gyrus (in its anterior part, BA 22). These activations presumably represent lexico-semantic access to melodic representations. In the pitch task, activations were observed in the left cuneus/precuneus (BA 18/19). These results were unexpected and we interpret them as reflecting a visual mental imagery strategy employed to carry out this task. The rhythm task activated left inferior Broca's area (BA 44/6), with extention into the neighbouring insula, suggesting a role for this cerebral region in the processing of sequential sounds.
Objectives:
The aim of this overview is to present the developments of music therapy in France, its techniques, mechanisms and principal indications, mainly in the context of Alzheimer's disease.
...Methods:
An international review of the literature on music therapy applied to Alzheimer's disease was conducted using the principal scientific search engines. A work group of experts in music therapy and psychosocial techniques then considered the different points highlighted in the review of literature and discussed them.
Results and Discussion:
Clinical and neurophysiological studies have enlightened some positive benefits of music in providing support for people with Alzheimer's disease or related disorders. Music therapy acts mainly through emotional and psycho-physiological pathways. It includes a series of techniques that can respond to targeted therapeutic objectives. Some studies have shown that music therapy reduces anxiety, alleviates periods of depression and aggressive behaviour and thus significantly improves mood, communication and autonomy of patients.
Conclusion:
Psychosocial interventions, such as music therapy, can contribute to maintain or rehabilitate functional cognitive and sensory abilities, as well as emotional and social skills and to reduce the severity of some behavioural disorders.
Relations between sensory functions and Alzheimer's disease are still under-explored. To understand them better, the Fondation Médéric Alzheimer has brought together a multi-disciplinary expert ...group. Aristote's five senses must be enhanced by today's knowledge of proprioception, motor cognition and pain perception. When cognition breaks down, the person with dementia perceives the world around her with her sensory experience, yet is unable to integrate all this information to understand the context. The treatment of multiple sensory inputs by the brain is closely linked to cognitive processes. Sensory deficits reduce considerably the autonomy of people with dementia in their daily life and their relations with others, increase their social isolation and the risk of accidents. Professionals involved with neurodegenerative diseases remain poorly aware of sensory deficits, which can bias the results of cognitive tests. However, there are simple tools to detect these deficits, notably for vision, hearing and balance disorders, which can be corrected. Many interventions for cognitive rehabilitation or quality of life improvement are based on sensory functions. The environment of people with dementia must be adapted to become understandable, comfortable, safe and eventually therapeutic.
A central question in understanding cognition and pathology-related cognitive changes is how we process time. However, time processing difficulties across several neurological and psychiatric ...conditions remain seldom investigated. The aim of this review is to develop a unifying taxonomy of time processing, and a neuropsychological perspective on temporal difficulties. Four main temporal judgments are discussed: duration processing, simultaneity and synchrony, passage of time, and mental time travel. We present an integrated theoretical framework of timing difficulties across psychiatric and neurological conditions based on selected patient populations. This framework provides new mechanistic insights on both (a) the processes involved in each temporal judgement, and (b) temporal difficulties across pathologies. By identifying underlying transdiagnostic time-processing mechanisms, this framework opens fruitful avenues for future research.
A central question in understanding cognition and pathology-related cognitive changes is how we process time. However, time processing difficulties across several neurological and psychiatric ...conditions remain seldom investigated. The aim of this review is to develop a unifying taxonomy of time processing, and a neuropsychological perspective on temporal difficulties. Four main temporal judgments are discussed: duration processing, simultaneity and synchrony, passage of time, and mental time travel. We present an integrated theoretical framework of timing difficulties across psychiatric and neurological conditions based on selected patient populations. This framework provides new mechanistic insights on both (a) the processes involved in each temporal judgement, and (b) temporal difficulties across pathologies. By identifying underlying transdiagnostic time-processing mechanisms, this framework opens fruitful avenues for future research.
•Time processing refers to the perception and representation of time.•Difficulties are reported across neurological and psychiatric pathologies.•They involve felt passage of time, duration processing, order or mental time travel.•Time processing measures could further our understanding of individual cognitive difficulties.•We emphasize the need for a neuropsychological perspective on subjective time.
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