Word: musication
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...those studies, neurosurgical patients, wide awake with their cortex exposed, listened to certain sounds and music. While their neural activity was being recorded, they told researchers how those selections made them feel...
Janigro wanted to perform similar studies on motor centers deep within the brain. Because music is often associated with movement - like tapping one's feet - he theorized that music could be used to modify the activity of thalamic and subthalamic neurons, which are located in the same area where a neuronal pacemaker is implanted during deep-brain stimulation...
...Janigro's study, more than a dozen neurosurgical patients, predominantly with Parkinson's, listened to three musical selections - rhythmic music with no discernible melody (by Gyorgi Ligeti, of Stanley Kubrick-movie fame), melodic music with undefined rhythm (by Aaron Jay Kernis, a Pulitzer Prize winner) and something in between (Ludwig van Beethoven). In the later stages of the research, to prevent familiarity from swaying the subjects' responses, music was specifically composed for the study by students from the Cleveland Institute of Music...
Listening to melodic music decreased the activity of individual neurons in the deep brain, says Janigro, adding that the physical responses to the calming music ranged from patients' closing their eyes to falling asleep. Some patients even settled into a nice round of snoring. And when lead neurosurgeon Ali Rezai needed patients to perform an action, such as lifting a limb, during the procedures, he simply removed their earphones and relayed instructions. Once the music resumed, patients returned to their snoozing...
These are very desirable results, says Janigro. With the right music, he says, patients can be more relaxed in the operating room. And that relaxation may mean not only that procedures involve less medication - to control blood pressure, which increases with stress - but perhaps that patients have quicker recovery times and shorter hospital stays...