Music Psychology Center (MPC) has conducted a one-year phenomenological study on music and extreme mental circuitry. The study involved 47 participants who have shown to have extreme mental circuitry. Music Meditation has proven to stimulate neuroplasticity.
“Extreme Mental Circuitry is a condition when individuals display radical and unrelenting mindset and behavior on activities in which they consider rewarding.” – MPC 2021
In the human brain, the cortex, which is the region of higher mental function, modulates the more “primitive,” emotional limbic system to create a balance necessary for normal functioning. In psychiatric disorders, including many personality disorders, whether caused by trauma or by abnormal brain-structure development, these systems are not in balance.
Research is exploring all the elements of brain circuitry that may be disturbed in personality disorders:
• Key anatomical structures, including the cortex and the all-important amygdala, the limbic brain’s alarm center;
• Neurotransmitters, principally serotonin, as well as other molecules of brain-cell communication; and
• Genes that initiate and orchestrate these processes.
Music provides and provokes a response, which is universal, ingrained into our evolutionary development, and leads to marked changes in emotions and movement. The anatomical associations noted above suggest that music must be viewed as one way to stimulate the brain. Music provides a non-invasive technique, which has attracted much interest but little empirical exploration to date. The therapeutic value of music can be in part explained by its cultural role in facilitating social learning and emotional well-being. However, a number of studies have shown that rhythmic entrainment of motor function can actively facilitate the recovery of movement in patients with stroke, Parkinson’s disease, cerebral palsy and traumatic brain injury
Studies of people with memory disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, suggest that neuronal memory traces built through music are deeply ingrained and more resilient to neurodegenerative influences. Findings from individual randomized trials suggest that music therapy is accepted by people with depression and is associated with improvements in mood disorders.
Further, the potential applications of music therapy in patients with neuropsychiatric disorders, including autism spectrum disorders, albeit intuitive, have led to psychotherapeutic uses aimed at directly evoking emotions.
Source: Trible, M. and Hesdorffer, D. (2017) / Siever, L. (2011)