[Dixielandjazz] ScienceDaily: Study Finds Dementia May Affect Musical Tastes

[Norman Vickers]

To: DJML
From: Norman

I forward this artice from Science Daily-- without comment.  Draw your own
conclusions. Thanks to Frank Froman, manager of the national H. L. mencken
list for this item.

norman

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From: Premise Checker [mailto:checker at panix.com] 
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Subject: ScienceDaily: Study Finds Dementia May Affect Musical Tastes 

Frank Forman wrote:  I had always thought that those who like pop music are
demented.

Study Finds Dementia May Affect Musical Tastes 
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/12/001226082511.htm

St. Paul, MN -- Appreciating music for the first time, or switching
preferences from classical to "pop" music, can be a behavior
resulting from dementia, as reported in Neurology, the scientific
journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Dementia is often characterized by a loss of reasoning abilities,
language skills and memory. But researchers at the National Centre
for Research and Care of Alzheimers Disease in Brescia, Italy,
found that two of the patients who had acquired frontotemporal
dementia, subsequently acquired something new: an appreciation for
a kind of music they previously disliked.

In one example cited in the study, a 68-year-old lawyer developed
progressing apathy, indifference to his work, and a loss of
inhibition, judgment, and speaking and abstract thinking skills.
About two years after his diagnosis, he began to listen at full
volume to a popular Italian pop music band. Formerly a classical
music listener, he had once referred to pop music as "mere noise."

In another example, a 73-year-old homemaker developed apathy and
loss of interest in her children. About a year after her diagnosis,
she developed an interest in music, where she had barely tolerated
easy-listening tunes before, and began sharing her 11-year-old
granddaughter's interest in pop music.

"Our patients developed a new attitude to appreciate a kind of
music that they used to dislike," said study author Giovanni B.
Frisoni, MD. "Although it cannot be claimed that such behavior is
specific to dementia, the behavior is unlikely in other types of
dementia such as Alzheimer's disease. In fact, it never came out
during history collection in any of the 1,500 new Azheimer's
patients seen in our center in the last five years, while it was
detected in two of the 46 new dementia patients seen in the same
period."

Frisoni offered some possible explanations for the change in
musical preferences. First, the change of behavior could be tied to
a change in one's attitude toward novelty. "To people over age 60,
pop music is considered novel. Previous studies have suggested that
novelty is managed by the brain's right frontal lobe, and a
predominance of the right over the left frontal lobe might lead to
novelty seeking," he said. Second, lesions may have damaged the
brain's frontal and temporal lobe, involved in the perception of
pitch, timbre, rhythm, and familiarity. Frisoni added that there is
no accounting for musical taste, and that his study does not imply
that pop music listeners have frontal dysfunction.

Another study by neurologists at the University of California-Los
Angeles released in 1998 reported similar findings: dementia brings
out artistic talents in people who never had them before. In that
study, it was observed that patients developed artistic talents,
including music and drawing, which flourished while the dementia
worsened.