Listening to Pop Music Regularly Can Help Improve Memory of Those with Brain Injuries

People who are suffering from brain injuries can improve their state by listening to pop music regularly, a new study suggests.

Researchers discovered that brain injured patients were able to recall a similar amount of memories when played a pop song than those without a brain injury. Dr. Amee Baird and Dr. Severine Samson were the first to investigate the power of music in evoking memories in people with brain injuries, rather than those who are healthy or who have dementia. Their study, published in the journal Neuropsychological Rehabilitation made use of play extracts of various popular songs and played it to five people who had sustained brain injuries. Five songs were also played to five control subjects without any brain injury.

Dr. Baird and Dr. Samson from the University of Newcastle and the University of Lille North found that patients with brain injuries recalled a similar number of memories to the people without brain injuries. In all of the participants studied, the majority of memories were of a person, people or a life period and these memories were typically positive. "The findings suggest that music is an effective stimulus for eliciting autobiographical memories and may be beneficial in the rehabilitation of autobiographical amnesia, but only in patients without a fundamental deficit in autobiographical recall memory and intact pitch perception."

The authors of the study hope that their research will help encourage other people to carry out further studies. They also suggest that further studies involving healthy people and those suffering from neurological conditions be conducted to be able to learn more about the link between memory, music and emotion.