Neurowissenschaftliche Aspekte der Musiktherapie bei affektiven Störungen und bei Demenz

Music Therapy in affective disorders and dementia reduces symptoms and modulates emotion and physiological processes. This is demonstrated in recent studies focusing on outcomes measures, physiological responses and emotion perception in depression and in arousal-regulation and learning abilities in dementia. Together with other neuroscientific perspectives arising from these studies the importance of frontotemporal activities in depression and comorbid anxiety, as well as functional compensation of non-degenerated brain regions in dementia are discussed. A central role in music therapy of affective disorders and dementia is treating negative valence of discrete emotions.