The development of music-therapy and the recent studies on its physiological effects on human body, based on the use of music- therapy in ancient civilizations to treat several diseases, have confirmed the use of sound to treat physical diseases or pain and have taken the scholars and the researchers to develop two different types of music therapies, namely the ultrasonic therapy (Forster & Palastange 1985) and the interferential therapy (Savane 1984), consisting in a type of low frequency electrical stimulation.
Although the way of approaching the above experiences are different, the methods used to develop the therapist-patient interaction, through the sound experience, are based on the belief that music-therapy is a process which involves the perceptive, cognitive, emotional and intellectual reactions of every type of patient.
A very important aspect of the above experience regards the intellectual involvement music provides.
Researches carried out in the USA in the last few years have shown that the sound experience produces noticeable and often measurable physical reactions when the sound waves ‘go through’ the human body. The appreciation of a music proposed by the music therapist – bearing in mind the concept of ISO about which Prof. Rolando Benezon writes in his works about music- therapy and particularly the treatment of pathologies due to the ‘inability to communicate’ through the ‘non verbal’ ( Juliette Alvin 1975, 1976, 1978 and Nordoff and Robbins 1971, 1977) – who works with psycho-physical handicapped adults and children has shown and very well highlighted that those patients are able to give a physical, emotional and cognitive answer thanks to the sound input. This should usually produce a strong emotional involvement which is generally followed by a physiological- biochemical reaction shown through euphoria, sadness, discouragement, calmness.
Experts on music know that sound characteristics like sound height, intensity, duration, instrumental timbre can produce, in the human body, physiological and biochemical reactions which can involve the limbic and the nervous (sympathetic and parasympathetic) systems.
The process produces biochemical substances, the neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, noradrenalin, etc. ( at a cerebral level) and hormones of the ‘wellbeing’ on the axe hypothalamus-hypophysis- suprarenal glands which produce endorphins, beta-endorphins, etc., as stated by researches carried out in Canada by Prof. Robert Zavorre, Neuro-musicologist of the University of Montreal, who has supported his research with several ‘images’, obtained using the APT ( Axial Positronic Tomography), of those cerebral areas involved when producing or listening to music.
It has been noticed that muscular strength ‘can increase or decrease’ according to the sound rhythm. The respiratory rhythm can also vary, either accelerating or slowing down. Variations can as well involve the cardiac rhythm, the blood pressure and the functions of the endocrine system which can be followed by an alteration of metabolism, biosynthesis and various enzymatic processes.
The idea of a vibro-acoustic technique (VAT) was born in London in 1968 from the meeting of Olav Skille and Juliette Alvin. They reached the conclusion that the effects of music on human beings have to be described according to quantitative instead of qualitative parameters.
They identified the three so called universal concepts of music which were summed up as follows:
1) Low frequencies can produce relax, calmness;
2) Rhythm can improve the muscular tone and so strenghten who listens to it;
3) Full volume music can produce aggressive behaviour, loss of self-control.
The results of this important study became effective in 1980 when a research was started in order to demonstrate the above. To this end the first ‘Bath of Music’ was organized.
The first experiments were carried out by Skille in Norway in a centre for retardate, pluri-handicapped children. The first difficulties met regarded the treatment of the painful contractions of the extensor and flexor muscles in patients with cerebral paralysis.
Stilman (1970) and Carrington (1980) made a generator of mechanical vibrations put on a proper bed that uttered vibrations of any frequency in order to reduce the muscular spasm during the treatment.
They reached the conclusion that low frequency sounds are particularly effective when used for disease regarding the high muscular tone, the spasticity and the psychosomatic illnesses as already demonstrated by musical treatments in ancient times and by those still used by sciamanists.
An emblematic case is that of an eight-year-old spastic girl. The treatment showed that after only three minutes of ‘Bath of Music’ a considerable reduction of the spasms could be noted.
After the results of this first ‘case’ Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish scholars deepened the studies carried out by Olav Skille and between 1981 and 1982 experimental centres were created in Norway where, at the moment, there are about 200 operating units.
In the International Conference about Music used in Medicine held in Ludenscheid in 1982 the first machine based on the principles of the vibro-acoustic therapy was introduced. The machine, registered all over the world, consists of a bed or a seat containing some pre-amplified speakers linked to a six- channel signal generator able to reproduce simultaneously several songs through an audiocassette or Cd recorder.
We know that the human body consists of 66% of water, the 80% of which is contained in the brain. Water is a conductor of sound vibrations and within water the sound spreads at a speed 4.5 times more than its speed in the air. During a vibro-acoustic therapy treatment the sound waves are 5-30 metres long. The physical effect deriving from the penetration of the sound in the human body is equivalent to about 1 watt.
It is important to underline that a minimum part of the acoustic energy is absorbed by the human being, ‘e.g. 2% at 100 Hz’ due to the obstacle existing between the human body and the air in which the energy spreads.
Consequently, in the vibro- acoustic therapy, the human body has to be put as close as possible to the sound spring in order to avoid too much loss of energy.
As we know the brain has not got a lymphatic system and uses other mechanisms to eliminate the ‘extraneous’ substances.
Before talking about the effects and the benefits of the vibro- acoustic therapy over the brain I think it would be useful to deepen some aspects and functions of the physiology of SNC.
The brain is immersed in the cerebral- spinal liquid (CSL) which is renovated every four hours and surrounds each cerebral cell; moreover, the emato- encephalic barrier (EEB) prevents the infections present in other parts of the body from spreading in the brain. The cerebral- spinal liquid fills the sub- aracnoidea cavity (SAC) which communicates with the small intercellular spaces between neurons and glial cells. It is important to highlight how an eventual antigen has to remain in the brain longer than in the muscular cells thanks to the presence of the EEB and of the absence of the lymphatic function and therefore, due to this ‘protection’, passes more slowly in the blood.
If, instead, the passage was quick the antigen and the cerebral cells involved would risk self destruction.
It is important to highlight that if the brain is hit by sound vibrations the flux of CSL is spread like when we want to solve sugar in a coffee. The melting is favoured by the use of a tea spoon which allows a better absorption of the molecules of the sugar in the liquid.
The same happens in the brain: if the flux of CSL is accelerated it allows to ‘clean’, ‘wash’ the cells’ surface and, most important, to wash the cerebral ‘litter’ produced by the metabolic functions and the synaptic activity away.
It has been demonstrated that a correct oral reproduction of sounds can contribute to ‘clean’ and give a correct cellular function back to some parts of the brain.
The picture below highlights how the production of certain sounds that start from the sella turcica can have effects on a part of the frontal and temporal lobes and on the whole of the medulla oblongata and the Varolio’s bridge; the vibrations of the parietal have effects on the parietal lobes and on parts of the frontal and occipital ones.
In the following picture we can notice how the acoustic vibrations are distributed in the grey and white matter.
The picture above shows the cerebral cortex (C) which is represented by the layer with more or less deep cuts. Within the white matter (W) we can see the basal ganglion (B). The shady areas represent those parts of the brain that are more sollicitated during a vibro- acoustic treatment as the vibrations are spread through the sphenoid (SB) and the parietals (PB) along the sagittal suture.
It is worth highlighting that there is an area in the brain in which the vibrations uttered by the base of the skull overlap those emitted by the parietal bones and that, just in that area, we have the choroid plexus, an organ whose functions are similar to those of the kidneys towards the CSL i.e. ‘ cleaning’.
The sphenoid bone, which is part of the skull, plays an important role in transmitting the vocal sounds to the brain during the vibro- acoustic therapy. The sphenoid bone is supported by 11 couples of muscles and it is linked, through articulations, to all the bones of the skull and to 5 bones of the face.
Another important thing to be taken into account during a vibro- acoustic treatment is the role of the cerebellar sickle which is also linked to the sphenoid and transmits vibrations to almost all the cerebral cortex.
It is important to underline that during the utterance of some vocal sounds the cerebellar sickle and tentorium are stretched by the strength applied to the sphenoid and such mechanical vibrations make a sort of soft massage of the cerebral cortex.
The fibrous structure of the skull vault makes a pressure over the ‘Pacchioni’s granulations’ which penetrate the emato- encephalic barrier. The pressure created during the vibro-acoustic therapy allows the CSL to flow in the superior sagittal sinus and in the lateral lacuna.
In this way the flux of CSL is accelerated and this originates a self re-change which facilitates the elution of substances from the brain. According to the Jindrak’s Postulate the effect of the vocalizations and of the acoustic vibrations, which have a major effect on the cerebral cells whose surface is ‘ washed’, can be applied to any other cellular structure exposed to the sound vibrations of the body.
The results of the studies on the vibro-acoustic therapy carried out in the last twenty years mainly on multiple handicapped people have pushed the scholars to show the effects of the treatment also on other pathologies.
Actually, other typologies of frequencies were discovered which could be used in the treatment of neck and shoulders pain, of menstrual cramps, pre-menstrual tension and dysmenorrhoea.
It is important to highlight that the duration of the treatment can be extremely variable and its results can go from the complete recovery of a stiff neck after one or two sessions to a simpler feeling of wellness during the therapeutic session.
The pathologies that get effective results from the vibro-acoustic treatment are the following:
Autistic children are so attracted by musical vibrations that they allow to be touched or physically stimulated by the therapists better than in other situations.
In cases of Asthma/cysto fibrosis the difficulties linked to the expectoration of the lung secretions can be levied by a medium range of frequency. The effect can last one or two days but in serious cases of asthma the vibro-acoustic machine has to be used up to 15 times a day.
As for abdominal pain/ colic pain it has been found out that the low frequencies between 40 and 50 Hz effectively reduce the pain.
In cases of cerebral paralysis and other spastic conditions scholars have found out that the therapy has got relevant effects on the reduction of the spasticity of the muscular tone due to a cerebral paralysis.
The mechanical vibrations of the vibro-acoustic therapy have a positive influence also in cases of intestinal constipation as they favour the intestinal mobility and, therefore, the peristalsis.
In cases of menstrual pain/ pre-menstrual tension the medium and low frequencies together with the listening of soft and melodious music used daily for three or four months can give long-lasting effects. The same happens in cases of pains in the low part of the back.
In cases of Depression due to stress it has been noted that listening to relaxing music (New Age) or to Celtic songs or to Finnish folk music played with the Kantele can be effective since the first sessions. They can be followed by the listening of allegro music (Rossini-Mozart) to give the patients a positive and happy feeling.
In the lesions due to sport activity the use of low frequencies with the muscular bundles and that of high frequencies with minor bundles (shoulders) can be really effective for the reduction of the spasms and the pain. In this way the muscular and tendon stretching at the end of heavy muscular efforts is favoured.
Insomnia is another disease which can be treated with the vibro-acoustic therapy; it has been noted that these types of patients get asleep easier during the treatment, need to sleep earlier and sleep for longer. The best results are obtained if the vibro-acoustic treatment takes place in the late evening.
Finally, according to recent studies, the vibro- acoustic therapy is effective also in cases of circulatory and lung disease. Through the vibro-acoustic treatment those patients with circulatory disease in the lower limbs show a great reduction of the pathology. The results regard also a great number of patients suffering from edema or lung emphysema.
