A Review on Music-Evoked Emotional Processing in the Brain:
Bridging Neuroscience Perspectives to Music Therapy in Children with ASD
Fang-Yu Liu, Drexel University, Music Therapy Program, Department of Creative Arts Therapies
Advisor: Paul Nolan, M.C.A.T., MT-BC, LPC, Drexel University, Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Creative Arts Therapies
FINDINGS
RATIONALE
Music-Evoked Emotional Processing
the overlapping
neural networks
between musical
and nonmusical
behaviors reveal
the mechanism
of therapeutic
change
Neuroscience
how music
therapists apply
the knowledge of
neuroscience to
facilitate the
emotional
processing in
individuals with
ASD
music therapy
can facilitate
emotional
processing and
social
communication
Music Therapy
CURRENT LITERATURE AND RESEARCH
•  The awareness of physical
sensations may be activated
through the diencephalon
(thalamus and hypothalamus)
and brainstem.
•  With regard to music
listening, the neurons of the
auditory nervous system
process the signals from the
cochlea to the primary
auditory cortex of the brain.
•  the brain structures and functions involved in
emotional processing
Arousal in
response to music
•  the brain structures and functions involved in
emotional processing of children with ASD
•  the brain structures and functions involved in
emotional processing of children with ASD
•  music therapy and children with ASD
REFERENCES
Ball, T., Rahm, B., Eickhoff, S. B., Schulze-Bonhage, A., Speck, O., & Mutschler, I. (2007). Response properties of
human amygdala subregions: evidence based on functional MRI combined with probabilistic anatomical maps. PloS
one, 2(3), e307. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0000307
Baumgartner, T., Lutz, K., Schmidt, C. F., & Jäncke, L. (2006). The emotional power of music: How music
enhances the feeling of affective pictures. Brain research, 1075(1), 151-164. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2005.12.065
Blood, A. J., & Zatorre, R. J. (2001). Intensely Pleasurable Responses to Music Correlate with Activity in Brain
Regions Implicated in Reward and Emotion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States
of America, 98(20), 11818-11823. doi: 10.1073/pnas.191355898
Brown, S., Martinez, M. J., & Parsons, L. M. (2004). Passive music listening spontaneously engages limbic and
paralimbic systems. Neuroreport, 15(13), 2033-2037. doi: 10.1097/00001756-200409150-00008
Eldar, E., Ganor, O., Admon, R., Bleich, A., & Hendler, T. (2007). Feeling the Real World: Limbic Response to
Music Depends on Related Content. Cerebral Cortex, 17(12), 2828-2840. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhm011
Koelsch, S., Fritz, T., V. Cramon, D. Y., Müller, K., & Friederici, A. D. (2006). Investigating emotion with music: an
fMRI study. Human brain mapping, 27(3), 239-250. doi: 10.1002/hbm.20180
Koelsch, S., Skouras, S., Fritz, T., Herrera, P., Bonhage, C., Küssner, M. B., & Jacobs, A. M. (2013). The roles of
superficial amygdala and auditory cortex in music-evoked fear and joy. NeuroImage, 81, 49-60. doi: 10.1016/
j.neuroimage.2013.05.008
Liégeois-Chauvel, C., Bénar, C., Krieg, J., Delbé, C., Chauvel, P., Giusiano, B., & Bigand, E. (2014). How
functional coupling between the auditory cortex and the amygdala induces musical emotion: A single case study.
Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 60, 82-93.
Mueller, K., Mildner, T., Fritz, T., Lepsien, J., Schwarzbauer, C., Schroeter, M. L., & Möller, H. E. (2011).
Investigating brain response to music: A comparison of different fMRI acquisition schemes. NeuroImage, 54(1),
337-343. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.08.029
Trost, W., Ethofer, T., Zentner, M., & Vuilleumier, P. (2012). Mapping aesthetic musical emotions in the brain.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y.: 1991), 22(12), 2769. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhr353
Appraisal of music
•  Both positive and negative
emotional valences of emotional
processing evoke amygdala and
hippocampus.
•  The stimuli that combine
auditory and visual stimuli may
increase the activation of
amygdala and hippocampus.
•  The nucleus accumbens can be
evoked by listening to pleasant
music.
•  The brain structures
involved in this step include:
(1) the auditory cortex, (2)
the orbito-frontal cortex, (3)
the ventral medial prefrontal
cortex, (4) the insula, (5) the
inferior frontal gyrus, and (6)
the cingulate gyrus.
Expression of
emotion toward
music
RECOMMEDATIONS
Goal
Rationale
Create a pleasant and safe environment in •  Stimulate and encourage the child to orient by
order to evoke the child’s awareness of
providing child-directed music which evokes
music
the brainstem, diencephalon and limbic
system reactions
Respond to the child’s behavior musically •  Activate the route between the limbic system
by becoming aware of the child’s behavior
and motor, premotor cortices
in order to connect with the child through
the music
Create a musical portrait of the child’s
•  Transform the emotional route of feeling
resistant behavior by changing the child’s
anxious to positive emotions in the limbic
variations in the music, which crosses the
system, motor and premotor cortices
threshold into communicative, physical,
and musical gestures
Encourage the coordination of body
•  Activate the route in the limbic system, the
movements and instrument playing in
motor, premotor cortices, and the areas
order to help the child experience the selfevoked by different types of music, such as
expression inherent in the structured
the orbito-frontal cortex, ventral medial
music therapy interaction
prefrontal cortex, insula, etc.
Methods/Techniques
•  Improvise the music or use child-focused instrumental or song materials to
stimulate the child’s interest
•  Use the child’s familiar songs to attract attention
•  Use pre-existing or improvise different styles of music to stimulate the child’s
interest and involvement in mutual music or sound making
•  Therapist responds to the child’s sounds, behaviors, or music making by using
imitation and showing empathy in reflecting the sound quality of the child’s
expression
•  Consider the child’s developmental stage and provide opportunities to respond to
the music, such as “call and response”
•  Improvise and adapt music to meet a child’s repetitive behavior so the child hears
music that matches the behavior. This can lead the child’s orientation to the music
and transform the behavior into a music experience, such as the pitch of
mumbling, the rhythmic pattern of a repetitive movement
•  Improvise and adapt music to meet a child’s behavior and then shape the
experience to a conscious level in order to allow the child to experience the selfexpression in musically and emotionally satisfying ways
•  Observe the child’s response toward the music activity, and gradually encourage
the independent expression musically and emotionally, such as the therapist
singing only the first half of lyrics of a phrase and inviting the child to complete the
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