by Rui M. Costa, DVM, PhD
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| A picture exhibiting the charting of brainwave trajectories of particular person neurons utilizing the Enlargement Selective Aircraft Illumination Microscope (ExA-SPIM). |
The opera Lucidity delves into the fragmented, bewildering world of dementia and Alzheimer’s illness, an area the place reminiscence dissolves and id blurs. It confronts a merciless paradox: characters who know that they do not know, those that don’t know that they don’t know, and others who’re painfully conscious of the data misplaced by these round them. Amid this narrative of reminiscence loss and fading recollection, one side stays untouched—music. Music cuts by the fog of reminiscence loss, reaching into the deepest components of the human mind, stirring one thing enduring even when different features of cognition fail.
Neuroscience provides insights into why music, greater than many different stimuli, endures within the brains of individuals grappling with reminiscence issues. Whereas Alzheimer’s illness usually ravages areas of the mind just like the entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus and different areas of the mind essential to forming and retrieving episodic recollections, the areas tied to musical reminiscence stay surprisingly resilient.
Music is saved not solely in a single area of the mind however throughout a widespread community involving mind areas that course of auditory stimuli, just like the auditory cortex and subcortical auditory areas; mind areas that course of rhythms and timing; areas concerned within the manufacturing of actions associated to taking part in or dancing; and, importantly, the limbic system, which governs emotion. These overlapping circuits imply that even within the later levels of dementia, sufferers usually retain the flexibility to acknowledge and reply to music that has marked important moments of their lives. For a lot of, a music as soon as performed at a marriage or a melody from childhood can evoke vivid recollections which can be in any other case inaccessible. Research utilizing mind imaging have proven that musical reminiscence faucets into mind areas which can be among the many final to be affected in Alzheimer’s illness.
Neurologist Oliver Sacks explored this in his work, noting how Alzheimer’s sufferers would possibly abruptly recall and be delivered to life by a well-known music, with a change in facial features and sometimes the flexibility to hum alongside to the tune.
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| A picture exhibiting the charting of brainwave trajectories of particular person neurons utilizing the Enlargement Selective Aircraft Illumination Microscope (ExA-SPIM). |
Music doesn’t merely provoke passive recognition; rhythm and melody can interact motor circuits within the mind and unlock a person’s skill to take part, interact, and join with a way of self which may in any other case appear misplaced. Music remedy is more and more getting used to reconnect dementia sufferers with their identities. Sufferers who could have forgotten their very own names can nonetheless sing lyrics from songs discovered a long time in the past. Singing or dancing can stimulate motor and cognitive capabilities and enhance the standard of life in dementia sufferers. Even for these with profound cognitive decline, the act of tapping alongside to a rhythm or singing in a gaggle could be motivating and supply a way of connectedness. In a world the place reminiscence fades, music stays, offering consolation, connection and a hyperlink to the self. It’s on this paradox between forgetting and remembering that Lucidity finds its energy.
Rui M. Costa is the President and CEO of the Allen Institute and a Professor of Neuroscience and Neurology at Columbia College. He obtained his PhD from UCLA and accomplished postdoctoral work at Duke College. He has led analysis on the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, the Champalimaud Middle for the Unknown, and the Zuckerman Thoughts Mind Habits Institute at Columbia College. He has been knighted commander of the Order of Santiago d’Espada and is an elected member of European Molecular Biology Group, the Nationwide Academy of Drugs, and the Washington State of Academy of Sciences.
The Allen Institute was based by Paul G. Allen in 2003. Its mission is to know the ideas that govern life, and to advance well being. On the Allen Institute interdisciplinary groups perform foundational moonshot analysis initiatives within the areas of mind science, immunology and cell science and share the findings brazenly with the world to have exponential impression in science and well being.
Lucidity is on stage November 21–24, 2024 at The Opera Middle. Be taught extra and purchase tickets at seattleopera.org/lucidity.
