Personalized Music Therapy Shows Promising Results in Treating Resistant Depression

Using music to help treat mental illness is one focus of mental illness research. Experts are interested in understanding music therapy and how to achieve the best results from its use. 

A study published in Cell Reports looked at some of the underlying mechanisms involved in the effectiveness of music therapy as a treatment for depression.The researchers found that subjective enjoyment was a key factor in seeing an effective response in participants with treatment-resistant depression. 

The results further highlight the underlying reasons why music therapy is helpful and what steps could enhance its effectiveness.This research involved 23 participants who had treatment-resistant depression. Treatment-resistant depression is depression that doesn’t respond to typical first-line treatments. All participants were between eighteen and sixty-five.Researchers looked at the effect of music on two key areas of the brain: the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) and the nucleus accumbens (NAc). The study notes that both areas are related to the brain’s reward circuitry and emotions. They also explained that the brain’s auditory cortex takes music and then activates the brain’s reward circuitry to create an emotional response. 

All participants had implanted electrodes in the BNST-NAc circuit. Researchers used these in their data collection, as well as temporal scalp electroencephalogram (EEG), to collect information on brain activity. 

In the familiar group, participants listened to a playlist regularly for two weeks and rated their preferences for specific pieces. 

The participants who were able to listen to their preferred music saw more improvement in depressive symptoms, indicating that the anti-depressive effects of music are related to individual enjoyment. In addition, the participants who were unfamiliar with the music but enjoyed it also saw more remarkable symptom improvement than those who did not enjoy the unfamiliar music. Further analysis of all groups also suggested that higher levels of music enjoyment lead to higher synchronization between EEG readings and music and higher music enjoyment induced greater activity within the observed reward circuit. 

The results also indicated that among the high-enjoyment group, the reward circuits’ response was influenced by the activity of the auditory cortex. 

The researchers found that in participants who had a lower musical enjoyment experience, adding low-frequency sounds increased enjoyment and helped reduce depressive symptoms. 

Based on all the results, the researchers further noted that familiarity may enhance the response elicited by the enjoyment of music.The findings underscore the need to tailor music selections to the individual preferences of patients if we want to see the greatest reduction in depressive symptoms. 

This research does have some limitations. First, it only included a small number of participants. Thus, future research could work on replicating the findings in larger groups. 

The study only included Asian participants, so future research could have more diversity among participants. Researchers also did not perform analyses of components like sex and socioeconomic status in participants. 

The researchers further noted that environmental factors, data resolution, and small sample size could have impacted results, so the observed oscillatory changes might be individualized.