Creative Brains: The CHROMA Project

Written by: Priyanka Patel

Our brains are intrinsically sensitive to music. When a stereo system emits vibrations that travel through the air and oscillate inside the ear canal, these vibrations tickle the eardrum. They are then rapidly transmitted into an electrical nerve impulse that travels through the auditory nerve to the brain, where they are reassembled into something we perceive as music. Music engagement has been shown to be beneficial to cognitive health and social-emotional well-being, including that of the elderly who may be experiencing cognitive decline.

The Cognitive Health Research On Musical Arts (CHROMA) Project at the Rice Behavioral Mechanisms Explaining Disparities (BMED) lab seeks to quantify this effect and better understand how music engagement such as listening to and composing music can prevent decline of cognitive abilities in the elderly. Recruited participants over the age of seventy, some of which were diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), partake in an intensive music creativity course at Rice University in which they are given the chance to learn and compose their own music as well as meet other people from the Houston community. A number of health measures are collected before the course begins, including neuroimaging of brain functional activity, cognitive performance, inflammatory markers, heart rate variability, perceptions of stress, and social support. These measures are reassessed after the music course and compared to those from a control group that does not participate in the course. The goal is to quantify the cognitive and general health benefit from participating in creative arts, specifically musical composition. This article seeks to highlight the positive impact the CHROMA project has made on not only its participants but also on its research team.

Project Coordinator Russell Ku shares his experience working on the project and the positive impact it has had on himself. As project coordinator, he mainly oversees the day-to-day tasks for the study. This can include going over study details with participants, screening them for eligibility, or giving a variety of assessments before and after each music class which involve psychological questionnaires, behavioral assessments, blood draw, and an MRI.

Participants are provided with a “simplified version of music notation which is easy to understand for everyone” despite cognitive impairments or simply a lack of musical knowledge. Russell says one of his favorite parts is when, “at the end of each music intervention, the participants put on a concert and show their friends and family what they’ve been working on and have the chance to present a piece of music that they composed.” Seeing the fruition of their hard work motivates the seniors to partake in more creative activities.

Ciel Price, a retired environmental lawyer of forty plus years, is an active participant in the CHROMA project and feels the same way. She says the course has “helped to maintain a positive mental state.” Ms. Price, a music fanatic, has been an active listener of music all her life. She is a regular visitor of the Houston opera, Mercury performances, and an ardent fan of Bob Dylan. Ms. Price’s favorite part of the project was “having the ability to score a musical piece without having a graduate degree in composition.” She enthusiastically talked about a piece she scored or composed herself using the simpler notation and shared it with other participants. She liked that they could read and understand each other’s notes thanks to the exemplary instruction. “[The instructor was] able to communicate pretty…complicated musical theories to a bunch of old knuckleheads and we understood,” she asserts jokingly.

As for quantitative data, assessment results from the study have not been entirely processed and analyzed as of now; however, the positive impact the CHROMA project has on its participants and research team is evident. Through this project, the research team provides seniors the opportunity to score their own music and share it with their peers, which in turn is rewarding for both the research team and the students. Engaging in such creative activities can activate unique parts of the brain that may prevent neurodegeneration.

References

“Project CHROMA.” Biobehavioral Mechanisms Explaining Disparities Lab, https:// bmed.rice.edu/project-chroma/.

“Project CHROMA Personnel III.” Arches Initiative, https://arches.rice.edu/tag/project-chroma/.