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Steve Larson drew on his 20 years of research in music theory, cognitive linguistics, experimental psychology, and artificial intelligence-as well as his skill as a jazz pianist-to show how the experience of physical motion can shape one's musical experience. Clarifying the roles of analogy, metaphor, grouping, pattern, hierarchy, and emergence in the explanation of musical meaning, Larson explained how listeners hear tonal music through the analogues of physical gravity, magnetism, and inertia. His theory of melodic expectation goes beyond prior theories in predicting complete melodic patterns. Larson elegantly demonstrated how rhythm and meter arise from, and are given meaning by, these same musical forces.

\"Some say laughter is the best medicine, but could it really be music?\" (Faces) Read more about the link between music and healing. The practice of music therapy is discussed.

An increasing number of music cognition labs have incorporated movement analysis techniques, facilitated by recent technological advances and the data analysis techniques (e.g., functional data analysis, Ramsay & Silverman, 2002; cf.Vines,Nuzzo, & Levitin, 2005). The fourth section, \"Representation in the Brain,\" will remind some readers of recent edited volumes on Music and Neuroscience (e.g., Avanzini, Lopez, Koelesh, & Majno, 2005; Peretz & Zatorre, 2001, 2003), though the research summarized is positioned uniquely in the current volume by virtue of the neighboring topics and the exclusive focus on performance.

Some people have a bizarre condition called synesthisia, which causes them to see sounds, smell colors and taste shapes. Neuroscientists think they might open a window into the ultimate mystery of human consciousness.

Music has been used as a cure for disease since as far back as King David's lyre, but the notion that it might be a serious cause of mental and physical illness was rare until the late eighteenth century. At that time, physicians started to argue that excessive music, or the wrong kind of music, could over-stimulate a vulnerable nervous system, leading to illness, immorality and even death. Since then there have been successive waves of moral panics about supposed epidemics of musical nervousness, caused by everything from Wagner to jazz and rock 'n' roll. It was this medical and critical debate that provided the psychiatric rhetoric of \"degenerate music\" that was the rationale for the persecution of musicians in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. By the 1950s, the focus of medical anxiety about music shifted to the idea that \"musical brainwashing\" and \"subliminal messages\" could strain the nerves and lead to mind control, mental illness and suicide. More recently, the prevalence of sonic weapons and the use of music in torture in the so-called War on Terror have both made the subject of music that is bad for the health worryingly topical. This book outlines and explains the development of this idea of pathological music from the Enlightenment until the present day, providing an original contribution to the history of medicine, music and the body.

Stress during pregnancy is detrimental to maternal health, pregnancy and birth outcomes and various preventive relaxation interventions have been developed. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate their effectiveness in terms of maternal mental health, pregnancy and birth outcomes. The protocol for this review is published on PROSPERO with registration number CRD42020187443. A systematic search of major databases was conducted. Primary outcomes were maternal mental health problems (stress, anxiety, depression), and pregnancy (gestational age, labour duration, delivery mode) and birth outcomes (birth weight, Apgar score, preterm birth). Randomized controlled trials or quasi-experimental studies were eligible. Meta-analyses using a random-effects model was conducted for outcomes with sufficient data. For other outcomes a narrative review was undertaken. We reviewed 32 studies comprising 3,979 pregnant women aged 18 to 40 years. Relaxation interventions included yoga, music, Benson relaxation, progressive muscle relaxation (PMR), deep breathing relaxation (BR), guided imagery, mindfulness and hypnosis. Intervention duration ranged from brief experiment (~10 minutes) to 6 months of daily relaxation. Meta-analyses showed relaxation therapy reduced maternal stress (-4.1 points; 95% Confidence Interval (CI): -7.4, -0.9; 9 trials; 1113 participants), anxiety (-5.04 points; 95% CI: -8.2, -1.9; 10 trials; 1965 participants) and depressive symptoms (-2.3 points; 95% CI: -3.4, -1.3; 7 trials; 733 participants). Relaxation has also increased offspring birth weight (80 g, 95% CI: 1, 157; 8 trials; 1239 participants), explained by PMR (165g, 95% CI: 100, 231; 4 trials; 587 participants) in sub-group analysis. In five trials evaluating maternal physiological responses, relaxation therapy optimized blood pressure, heart rate and respiratory rate. Four trials showed relaxation therapy reduced duration of labour. Apgar score only improved significantly in two of six trials. One of three trials showed a significant increase in birth length, and one of three trials showed a significant increase in gestational age. Two of six trials examining delivery mode showed significantly increased spontaneous vaginal delivery and decreased instrumental delivery or cesarean section following a relaxation intervention. We found consistent evidence for beneficial effects of relaxation interventions in reducing maternal stress, improving mental health, and some evidence for improved maternal physiological outcomes. In addition, we found a positive effect of relaxation interventions on birth weight and inconsistent effects on other pregnancy or birth outcomes. High quality adequately powered trials are needed to examine impacts of relaxation interventions on newborns and offspring health outcomes. In addition to benefits for mothers, relaxation interventions provided during pregnancy improved birth weight and hold some promise for improving newborn outcomes; therefore, this approach strongly merits further research.

Interoception plays an important role in emotion processing. However, the neurobiological substrates of the relationship between visceral responses and emotional experiences remain unclear. In the present study, we measured interoceptive sensitivity using the heartbeat discrimination task and investigated the effects of individual differences in interoceptive sensitivity on changes in pulse rate and insula activity in response to subjective emotional intensity. We found a positive correlation between heart rate and valence level when listening to music only in the high interoceptive sensitivity group. The valence level was also positively correlated with music-elicited anterior insula activity. Furthermore, a region of interest analysis of insula subregions revealed significant activity in the left dorsal dysgranular insula for individuals with high interoceptive sensitivity relative to individuals with low interoceptive sensitivity while listening to the high-valence music pieces. Our results suggest that individuals with high interoceptive sensitivity use their physiological responses to assess their emotional level when listening to music. In addition, insula activity may reflect the use of interoceptive signals to estimate emotions.