(Aug 3) Classical music--or at least music by Bach, Corelli, and Mozart--is an effective tool in combating depression, according to a new study released last month.
The study, done by a group of researchers at Mexico's University of Oaxaca led by Sergio Castillo-Perez and published in the journal The Arts in Psychotherapy, concluded that "music offers a simple and elegant way to treat anhedonia, the loss of pleasures in daily activities."
The experiment included 79 women and men ranging in age from 25 to 60, who had been diagnosed with low to medium-level depression and who were taking no antidepressant medications. During the eight-week study, half the group participated in 30-minute weekly counseling sessions with a psychologist, while the others listened to 50 minutes of classical music each day. Each week, participants reported their levels of various symptoms of depression. The selected works were Bach's "Italian" Concerto, BWV 971, one of Corelli's Concerti grossi, and Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos, K. 448.
By the end of the study period, 29 participants in the classical-music group had showed improvement, while four showed a lack of improvement and another eight left the group. By contrast, in the group participating traditional talk therapy, only a dozen participants showed improvement, and sixteen showed no improvement at all, while another ten left the study.
The results of this trial don't suggest that music is a panacea to healing depression, or that patients should give up therapy and antidepressants, but the study indicates that people dealing with low- and medium-grade depression "can use music to enhance the effects of psychological support." As with the much-vaunted and eventually overhyped "Mozart Effect," the researchers in Mexico only chose instrumental pieces by Baroque and Classical Era composers; no word on whether or not Chopin, Stravinsky, or Reich might have similar results.
According to the Mexican researchers, it is possible that such complex music "can activate several processes which facilitate brain development and/or plasticity"; another reason for the brain boosts might come from increased levels of dopamine. Like physical exercise, listening to music is another activity that has been found to increase dopamine levels, and depression is often associated with low levels of dopamine or a low number of dopamine receptors in patients' brains.
Interestingly enough, at the outset many of the participants didn't feel any particular warmth towards classical music. In fact, as the researchers rather dryly report, "At the beginning of the study, many of the chosen patients did not show a good disposition to listen to the music."
However, their feelings seem to have shifted greatly over the course of the two-month experiment. "Later on," the study continues, "they not only proved to be interested parties, but also asked for more music of this type."
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by Anastasia Tsioulcas
