Science: Listening to music can really relieve pain, Chinese scientists reveal the neural mechanism behind

Fish and sheep from the quantity of the Temple of Temple | Public Account QBITAI

Music can really analgesic, and the latest scientific evidence has been on Science.

What you may not think of is that this matter has nothing to do with the goodness of music, but it depends on the size of the sound.

In this study, the experiment showed that the groaning and low singing close to whispering can alleviate the pain, but the same song, raising the decibel distribution is useless.

Studies are from institutions such as the University of Science and Technology, Anhui Medical University, and the National Institute of Health, and are led by Chinese scientists.

Let's take a look at what is going on.

The analgesic effect depends on the sound signal -to -noise ratio

In the experiment, the researchers first caused the mice's rear claws to inflammate, and then played different types and volume sounds to the mice, and used the Von Frey Test animal behavior test to evaluate its sensitivity to pain in different states.

The types of audio to play to the mice include: classical music, unpleasant uncoordinated music, and white noise.

As a result, mice really could not appreciate human music. Whether it was a harmonious music or messy notes, there was no difference between the mice.

Bridge bean sack, this is not to say that music does not have an analgesic effect.

However, the key to the effect is not whether it is pleasant, but the decibels.

More accurate, it is the signal -to -noise ratio of music and background noise.

Researchers found that when mice heard a sound of 5 points higher than the background noise, no matter how the sound was listening to humans, it could increase the pain threshold of mice.

In other words, these types of sounds can relieve mice's pain in the sound intensity close to whisper.

△ Environmental noise is 45 decibels

When the sound is raised to 10 dB higher than the background noise, the analgesic effect disappears.

In addition, the researchers also found that after listening to "analgesic" music for 3 consecutive days (20 minutes per day), the analgesic effect can be maintained for at least 2 days.

The neural mechanism behind

According to Yu asnyuan Liu, one of the communication authors of this study, before, the research of human brain imaging has shown that some areas of the brain are related to the analgesic effect brought by music. But what is the neural mechanism behind it has not been cracked.

As a result, the researchers decided to further reveal the puzzle through animal experiments.

Using virus tracking, multi -electrode records, and neuronal calcium imaging records, the researchers have determined a neurological pathway to the auditory cortex from receiving and processing sound information.

The hill brain is a transit station that connects the whole body and the cerebral cortex.

Researchers tried to suppress this path. Without sounds, they successfully simulated the effect of low -intensity sound to relieve pain.

Conversely, activating this path, the sensitivity of mice to pain recovers.

It should be noted that at present, researchers can not determine whether the human brain has similar mechanisms, as LiU said:

We don't know if human music is meaningful to rodents, but the emotional components are obviously very different for humans themselves.

Nevertheless, Science still commented that the results of the study showed that the analgesic effect brought by the sound has a physical foundation. "Sound therapy" may further reduce the use of analgesic drugs.

Reference link: [1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn4663 [2] https://www.eurekalert.org/news/957898888

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