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Hypothesizing Music Intervention Enhances Brain Functional Connectivity Involving Dopaminergic Recruitment: Common Neuro-correlates to Abusable Drugs

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Abstract

The goal of this review is to explore the clinical significance of music listening on neuroplasticity and dopaminergic activation by understanding the role of music therapy in addictive behavior treatment. fMRI data has shown that music listening intensely modifies mesolimbic structural changes responsible for reward processing (e.g., nucleus accumbens [NAc]) and may control the emotional stimuli’s effect on autonomic and physiological responses (e.g., hypothalamus). Music listening has been proven to induce the endorphinergic response blocked by naloxone, a common opioid antagonist. NAc opioid transmission is linked to the ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine release. There are remarkable commonalities between listening to music and the effect of drugs on mesolimbic dopaminergic activation. It has been found that musical training before the age of 7 results in changes in white-matter connectivity, protecting carriers with low dopaminergic function (DRD2A1 allele, etc.) from poor decision-making, reward dependence, and impulsivity. In this article, we briefly review a few studies on the neurochemical effects of music and propose that these findings are relevant to the positive clinical findings observed in the literature. We hypothesize that music intervention enhances brain white matter plasticity through dopaminergic recruitment and that more research is needed to explore the efficacy of these therapies.

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Acknowledgments

Marlene Oscar Berman is the recipient of grants from the National Institutes of Health, NIAAA (RO1-AA07112 and K05-AA00219). Marcelo Febo is the recipient of R01DA019946. Kenneth Blum is the recipient of the Life Extension Foundation grant awarded to PATH Foundation NY. We also thank Margaret A. Madigan for her expert editorial work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry & McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida, College of Medicine, Box 100183, Gainesville, FL, 32610-0183, USA

    Kenneth Blum & Marcelo Febo

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Human Global Mental Health Institute, Center for Clinical & Translational Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA

    Kenneth Blum & Thomas Simpatico

  3. Division of Neuroscience –Based Therapy, Summit Estate Recovery Center, Las Gatos, CA, USA

    Kenneth Blum

  4. Division of Addition Services, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA

    Kenneth Blum

  5. PATH Foundation NY, New York, NY, USA

    Kenneth Blum, Kristina Dushaj, Mona Li & Eric R. Braverman

  6. IGENE, LLC, Austin, TX, USA

    Kenneth Blum & Chris Rodriquez

  7. Division of Applied Clinical Research, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA

    Kenneth Blum

  8. Department of Clinical Psychology and Addiction, Institute of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

    Kenneth Blum & Zsolt Demetrovics

  9. Division of Neuroscience Research & Addiction Therapy, Shores Treatment & Recovery Center, Port Saint Lucie, FL, USA

    Kenneth Blum

  10. Departments of Psychiatry and Anatomy & Neurobiology, Boston University School of Medicine and Boston VA Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA

    Marlene Oscar-Berman

  11. Department of Psychiatry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Rajendra D. Badgaiyan

  12. Neuromodulation Program, University of Minnesota Twin City Campus, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Rajendra D. Badgaiyan

  13. Laboratory of Advanced Radiochemistry, University of Minnesota Twin City Campus, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Rajendra D. Badgaiyan

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  1. Kenneth Blum
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  2. Thomas Simpatico
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  3. Marcelo Febo
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  6. Mona Li
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  7. Eric R. Braverman
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  8. Zsolt Demetrovics
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  9. Marlene Oscar-Berman
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  10. Rajendra D. Badgaiyan
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Correspondence to Kenneth Blum.

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Conflict of Interest

Kenneth Blum holds the US and Foreign nutrigenomic patents to treat Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS) with dopaminergic agonists. Dr. Blum is a member of the scientific advisory board of Dominion Diagnostics, LLC.

Author Contributions

KB wrote the basic manuscript. TS is a psychiatrist and musician who provided the impetus and design for the hypothesis. KD reviewed and developed the second draft of the manuscript. ZD, MOB added important comments and clinical interpretations. CR provided information related to the practice of music from a perspective of a musician. ERB, RDB and ML provided manuscript edits and comments concerning clinical applications and psychiatry.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health grants 1R01NS073884 and 1R21MH073624, awarded to Dr. Rajendra D Badgaiyan. Dr. Marcelo Febo is the recipient of R01DA019946 and R21DA038009. The writing of this paper was supported in part by funds from the National Institutes of Health, NIAAA (RO1-AA07112 and K05-AA00219), and the Medical Research Service of the US Department of Veterans Affairs (MOB). KB and ERB are the recipients of a grant to PATH FOUNDATION NY, by Life Extension Foundation, Ft/Lauderdale, Florida.

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Blum, K., Simpatico, T., Febo, M. et al. Hypothesizing Music Intervention Enhances Brain Functional Connectivity Involving Dopaminergic Recruitment: Common Neuro-correlates to Abusable Drugs. Mol Neurobiol 54, 3753–3758 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12035-016-9934-y

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