14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers in Australia and France were recently able to demonstrate that mainstream pop songs can be used to evoke lost personal memories in patients who had suffered severe brain injuries. Their work is published in a recent issue of the international scientific journal Neuropsychological Rehabilitation.
The study was carried out by Amee Baird, from the ARC Center of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, Macquarie University, Australia and Séverine Samson, with the Department of Psychology at the University of Lille and La Salpêtrière Hospital, in Paris.
In a series of experiments, 5 patients with brain injuries and 5 healthy controls were played Billboard Top 100 number-one songs from throughout their life span. The incidence of music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAM) was then recorded in these groups, AlphaGalileo reports.
Four out of the five patients were able to recall events, persons, or actions associated with the songs they were hearing. In fact, one of them held the record for the highest number of MEAM, even when including results from the test group. This study highlights that music is often overlooked as a very potent therapeutic tool.