Brain Aerobics with Music (LINK)
May 11th 2008 23:21
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"There's a lot of mind work going into being a performer,"Connie Tomaino says. "Fundamentally, it is keeping brain circuits alive and activated so that they either re-engage the cells or other [neural] networks, or actually encourage new networks to be formed."
The institute's music therapists try to apply this principle by having patients listen to and perform music, improving their brain function in the process.
According to Tomaino, little money was available for research into music therapy's scientific basis before large universities became interested in the neurology of music in the late 1990s. The idea for the institute, she says, started as "a spark, a dream, a wish, a hope," with the goal of funding such scientific research.
It wasn't until 1993, when Tomaino started applying for funding, that the hope became a reality. The institute was formally established in 1995, and she became the director in 2000.
As funding for research has taken off, the institute's focus has shifted. It now looks for the best ways to treat physical brain problems like stroke, Alzheimer's and accidental trauma, using knowledge about how the brain responds to music.
The institute also seeks to connect neuroscientists with the practical information gathered by its music therapists, who visit "thousands of patients a day" in the Bronx, Brooklyn and White Plains.
Link to this article is attached above.
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