Study Finds Music Therapy Boosts Melatonin Levels

- Alzheimer’s Patients Benefit From Lessons; Could Point to Help for All Ages-

For the first time, a major research effort has not only demonstrated a link between music and wellness, but has quantified it. A study led by Dr. Frederick Tims of Michigan State University and published in the November 1999 issue of Alternative Therapies showed that patients with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) who underwent four weeks of structured music therapy showed significant increases in their level of melatonin, a neurohormone linked with sleep regulation and believed to influence the immune system.

Immediately after the therapy, which consisted of interactive sessions during which subjects were invited to play, drum or sing along with their favorite old songs and new songs, the group of 20 male patients showed a 216 percent mean increase in serum melatonin levels compared to readings taken just before the therapy began. What’s more, the levels had increased even more when researchers checked them again six weeks later.

"This is the first time we’ve quantified the effects of music," says Dr. Mahendra Kumar of the University of Miami School of Medicine, one of the researchers behind the study. In addition to the observed chemical changes, he notes, "Their quality of life seemed to be improved just by this small music intervention. They became very active, they started sleeping better and they became more cooperative with the nurses."

The study also noted changes in other brain chemicals such as prolactin, serotonin, norepinephrine and epinephrine. Perhaps more importantly, it found that the fluctuations in these chemicals correlated with each other to varying degrees, indicating that the music therapy was affecting the larger natural process by which the brain regulates their levels. In particular, other studies have indicated that norepinephrine and epinephrine may play a role in determining melatonin levels.

According to Dr. Kumar, this observation may point to valuable insights for the general public. In recent years, the use of commercially available melatonin supplements to regulate sleep has become a popular response to insomnia and jet lag. However, he noted, using a pill to address only one element in the symphony of brain chemicals could disrupt homeostasis, the body’s natural tendency to keep things in balance.

"All drugs have bad side effects," Dr. Kumar explains. "Hormones are interdependent. When you take a pill like melatonin, it will stop its own synthesis in your body."

By contrast, he suggests, a therapy that stimulates the brain to elevate melatonin levels according to its own balanced, natural process – as music therapy appears to do – might be a safer and more effective alternative. He cautions that even if this is true, the theoretical use of music therapy to improve sleep would involve a lifestyle change, not a quick fix: the therapy that produced the research results took place over the course of four weeks.

"In my opinion, if someone is depressed and not getting good sleep, this kind of music will take them into a different domain," Dr. Kumar concluded.

The study that produced these results involved 20 male inpatients aged 68 to 90 years at the Geriatric and Extended Care Facility of the Miami Veterans Administration Medical Center, all of whom had been diagnosed with probable AD. None of the subjects was taking antidepressants or any other medication that affected the brain chemicals measured in the study.

In small groups of four to six patients each, the subjects underwent music therapy sessions of 30 to 40 minutes, five days a week, for four weeks. After an opening song incorporating the name of each participating patient, each session included singing favorite musical selections from the era of the subjects’ youth, playing handheld drums and improvising to various tunes. Using assays of blood samples, levels of the chemicals under study were checked before the therapy began, the morning after it ended, and six weeks after it ended.

Dr. Tims is professor and chair of Music Therapy at Michigan State University. Other members of the research team that conducted the study were professors Adarsh Kumar, David Lowenstein, J. B. Fernandez, Gail Ironson and Carl Eisdorfer of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Miami School of Medicine; research fellow Dean G. Cruess of the University of Miami Department of Psychology; and Chief of Staff Michael J. Mintzer and clinical psychiatrist Rogelio Cattan of the Miami Veterans Administration Medical Center.

This study is not the first to suggest that music is linked with wellness. In earlier, separate work, for example, another team led by Dr. Tims found that retirees who took keyboard lessons showed an increase in human growth hormone (hGH) and decreases in anxiety, depression and loneliness. Dr. Kumar indicated that other promising avenues of research might lead from the Miami study, especially with regard to music therapy’s effects on younger people and people without AD.