Recently, I came upon an article from MIT news: http://news.mit.edu/2019/brain-wave-stimulation-improve-alzheimers-0314
The article discusses research done at MIT that revealed how a unique combination of light and sound can help improve cognitive and memory impairments of mice that were genetically predisposed to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Previous studies have suggested that gamma-frequency oscillations (25 to 80 Hz) were impaired in patients with Alzheimer’s. Researchers in this study were able to use light flickering at 40 Hz for one hour a day to reduce levels of beta amyloid plaques, which clump in areas of the brain related to cognitive functions. Then, they decided to try this with sound: exposure to 40 Hz tones for one hour a day also reduced levels of beta amyloid in the auditory cortex and hippocampus. A combination of light and sound had an even greater effect. I think this noninvasive treatment could be a great way to help patients with Alzheimer’s, although we would have to see if people respond in the same way the mice did first. It also probably isn’t the most comfortable to be staring at a flickering light and listening to a monotone sound for one hour a day. After thinking about this, my mind wandered to the piano. What if I played piano pieces around the 40 Hz zone? Would this produce a similar effect as just the 40 Hz tone? Listening to music is definitely a more pleasant experience, and the lowest keys on the piano did fall around 40 Hz, making it possible to produce music around that tone. I decided to make a couple recordings to compare the sound of a piece played normally, played with the left hand shifted down an octave, and both hands shifted down an octave to hear what the differences sounded like. Here is a video I made on comparing these variations: https://youtu.be/w0DC80urR84 This was just a quick experiment to see how different the variations would sound, so the playing is not the best. It would be great if I somehow found a way to test this theory on the same subjects in the research and see how they react to the music compared to the 40 Hz tone. Anyways, I hope you found this discovery as exciting and interesting as I did!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
February 2021
Categories
All
|