Dr. Jennifer Krizman researches an extremely important system that’s significance is commonly overlooked by the public. Using the article “Auditory biological marker of concussion in children” by Kraus et al. as a base, she spoke on the impact concussions can have on a person’s auditory processing, specifically using these effects to identify concussions in athletes (2016). Identifying concussions has relied on a person’s own assessment, but this research opens the door to a more reliable method. It is easy to think of auditory processing as a simple function since it comes so naturally to most people, but she explained how sound waves are composed of frequency, harmonics, amplitude, timing, consistency, and noise. Brain injury impacts them differently, which allows for a recognizable change indicative of a concussion. One of the things that stood out the most to me in her talk was the advantage that musicians have over non musicians in processing frequency and harmonics possibly based on their enhanced rhythmic skill. It highlights that music isn’t just something we enjoy, but also has neural benefits, which led me to look more into its bonuses.
The article “How Music Resonates in the Brain” by Allison Eck dives into why music has such a profound effect on us. She links our attentive hearing to evolution, highlighting how early mammals had to be adept at hearing and recognizing the sound of predators approaching to survive. How a person responds to sound involves the autonomic nervous system, which controls certain involuntary processes like heart rate. Music also activates majority of the brain, including the hippocampus and amygdala which explains why people easily begin to dance to a beat. Interestingly, listening to music heavily activates the orbitofrontal cortex, which is hyperactive in people with OCD. People with OCD assess stress maladaptively, often excessively believing something bad will happen which shapes their thoughts and actions to be obsessive. Music listening might hyperactive the same region as OCD due to its reliance on tension and resolution. From what we have heard, we have expectations of what we will hear next. While the anticipation of OCD has negative effects on the rest of the brain, music uses our anticipation to keep us engaged. The last point the article brings up is music’s potential to help people heal. There is evidence that listening to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major can reduce how often some people with epilepsy experience seizures. This opens up a whole field of research as to what about that song is helpful, why does it help some rather than others, and how can music be used to help people with other neurological disorders. Music has the potential to significantly increase the quality of people’s lives and the importance of researching how should not be overlooked.
Merging the points of Krizman’s work and this article highlights how auditory processing influences many areas of our life. Music has a wide range of benefits and it should not be belittled. Both Krizman and the article spotlight rhythm’s evolutionary basis and how it is such a natural aspect of humanity. The arts, including music, are often undermined, especially compared to STEM subjects. In actuality, music has numerous strengths that cannot be replaced by other fields.
References
Eck, Allison. “How Music Resonates in the Brain.” Harvard Medicine Magazine, Harvard Medicine, 13 Nov. 2025, magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/how-music-resonates-brain.
Kraus, Nina, et al. “Auditory biological marker of concussion in children.” Scientific Reports, vol. 6, no. 1, 22 Dec. 2016, https://doi.org/10.1038/srep39009.
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