Heart heals with classical music

New Scientist (March 23, 2012) documents the effects of classical music on mice with heart transplants. The article reveals that mice with heart transplants survived twice as long if they listened to classical music than if they listened to monotone music after their operation.

Masateru Uchiyama of Juntendo University Hospital in Tokyo, Japan, gave mice heart transplants from an unrelated donor, expecting the hearts to be rejected. For a week following the operation, the mice were grouped and each group was exposed to a selection of music: (1) Verdi's opera La Traviata, (2) Mozart concertos, (3) Enya, or (4) a range of single monotones.

Mice exposed to opera fared best - they survived an average of 26 days. Mice that listened to Mozart survived for an average of 20 days. Mice who listened to Enya survived for 11 days and the monotone group survived for only seven days.

The team tested the effects of La Traviata on deaf mice too. They survived for just seven days, reinforcing the likelihood that mice actually need to hear the music. The tests were therefore not affected by other factors, such as feeling vibrations from the music.

Blood samples from the mice revealed that classical music appeared to slow organ rejection by calming the immune system. The mice had lower concentrations of interleukin-2 and gamma interferon – both of which promote inflammation – and higher levels of substances that dampen inflammation, such as interleukins 4 and 10. Uchiyama thinks that the harmony of Verdi and Mozart may be important.

The team in the Juntendo University Hospital in Tokyo expects to test the phenomenon on people undergoing transplants. Research in 2003 found that music therapy combined with relaxation imagery can influence pain and nausea in people following a bone marrow transplant. However, John Sloboda, professor of psychology at the University of Keele, is sceptical about the effects of specific genres of music. The effect might be totally specific to that piece, or even the recording, played at a specific volume. Sloboda maintains that the test does not show what characteristics of these pieces of music might have caused the immunosuppressant response. Nor do the tests examine the music preferences of the mice before being exposed to the selections. Perhaps more tests with more music are required.