Music Therapy Dec Issue

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Brain Mechanisms behind Zolpidem Addiction& how Music Therapy works in Relieving Addiction to Sleeping pills ( Vide -the Case Study on Sedative Ragas)

Zolpidem is a short-acting nonbenzodiazepine hypnotic of the imidazopyridine class that potentiates gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), an inhibitory neurotransmitter, by binding to GABAA receptors at the same location as benzodiazepines. Zolpidem has not adequately demonstrated effectiveness in maintaining sleep; however, it is effective in initiating sleep.

Its hypnotic effects are similar to those of the benzodiazepine class of drugs, but it is molecularly distinct from the classical benzodiazepine molecule and is classified as an imidazopyridine.

Zolpidem is an agonist at the GABA A y 1 subunit. Due to its selective binding, Zolpidem has very weak anxiolytic, myorelaxant, and anticonvulsant properties but very strong hypnotic properties. Zolpidem binds with high affinity and acts as a full agonist at the Îą1-containing GABAA receptors type.

Zolpidem has a preferential binding for the GABAA-benzodiazepine receptor complex in the brain but a low affinity for the GABAA-benzodiazepine receptor complex in the spine. Zolpidem may increase slow wave sleep but has no effect on stage 2 sleep.

A review medical publication found long-term use of Zolpidem is associated with drug tolerance, drug dependence, rebound insomnia and CNS-related adverse effects Harmony Bulletin

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Editorial

The current issue highlights the mechanisms behind sleeping pill addiction, and how music therapy can help in relieving such addictions. Sleeping Pills may be prescribed by physicians for use over a short period of time in the treatment of insomnia.

It is however, a known fact that many patients become addicted to sleeping pills. The DSM IV describes addition to sleeping pills as, “Addiction, or dependency, is present in an individual who demonstrates any combination of three or more of the following symptoms: preoccupation with use of the chemical between periods of use ;using more of the chemical than had been anticipated; the development of tolerance to the chemical in question; a characteristic withdrawal of syndrome from the chemical; use of the chemical to avoid or control withdrawal symptoms; repeated efforts to cut back or stop the drug use; intoxication at inappropriate times or when withdrawal interferes with daily functioning; a reduction in social, occupational or recreational activities; continued substance use in spite of the individual having suffered social, emotional, or physical problems related to the drug use. There have been many celebrities over the years that have been known or thought to have had a problem with sleeping pills. Many of these celebrities accidentally died or were thought to have committed suicide by taking these types of medication. Some of these celebrities were: Marilyn Monroe (August 5, 1962) & Michael Jackson ( January 25, 2009).

Addiction is not a character defect or a moral deficiency, it’s an illness. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a better, long-term solution for sleeping problems than medications. This therapy works on the basis of understanding the behavioral and mental factors that affect a person’s quality of sleep. Just five hours of CBT can provide benefits for 70% of cases. CBT also gives a person better sleep for more than one year, which sleeping tablets cannot do. Apart from CBT, music therapy employing sedative Indian ragas have proved efficacious in reducing the dosage of sleeping pills in those with addiction.

Contents

Brain Mechanisms behind Zolpidem Addiction& how Music Therapy works in Relieving Addiction to Sleeping pills

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Indian Music Therapy Sedative Ragas Can Relieve Addiction To Sleeping Pills

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Rag Bilaskhani Todi Relieves Psychological Distress In Adolescents With Increased Neuroticism And Decreased Agreeableness 11 Vol 1 Issue 4 December 2012

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INDIAN MUSIC THERAPY

SEDATIVE RAGAS CAN RELIEVE ADDICTION TO SLEEPING PILLS

A Case Study From The Music Medicine Unit, MGMCRI

Mrs. Y, aged 35, was referred to the Music Medicine Unit to get some relief from addiction to the sleeping pill Zolpidem ( a non benzodiazepine sedative-hypnotic drug with similar effects as the benzodiazepines). This drug was prescribed for her insomnia resulting from marital discord. She had become both physically and psychologically dependent upon this medication. Whenever she tried to stop these sleeping pills, she not only had to battle a mental compulsion, but also had to go through physical withdrawal symptoms. The main danger associated with the abuse of Zolpidem is increased tolerance. The individual will feel compelled to take higher doses of the drug. This means that there is the risk of overdose.

This type of drug abuse can lead to depression, and associated with it is an increased risk of suicide. There will be an obsession with ensuring a regular supply of the drug, along with a reduction in the individual’s ability to meet his/her personal and social responsibilities.

Inability to reduce the sleeping pill dosage is also commonly observed.

The bad sleeper convinces him/herself gradually that he/she is unable to sleep without the help of a drug. That feeling of helplessness and distrust (which can be acquired from the childhood on) is in the heart of the mechanisms of insomnia.

Disadvantages of sedative pills: 1.They conceal the natural signals of sleep and, thereby, aggravate the handicap of someone who “no longer knows what it is to feel sleepy in the evening”; 2.The increase of the sleep duration is carried out at the expense of its quality (with the disappearance of slow wave sleep); 3.The sleeping pills lose their efficiency very quickly even if they are not used every night; 4.They cause side effects during the night (sleepwalking, confusion ...) and during the day (sleepiness, tiredness, dry mouth, dizzy spells ...);

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5.They are responsible for memory and attention disorders;

Mrs. Y had all these symptoms of addiction to the sleeping pill. She could not get sleep even after 5mg of Zolpidem, and has to exercise vigorously so that she could become fatigued and then get some sleep. She was asked to listen to 4 night ragas which were endowed with sedative-hypnotic characteristics ( Jaijaiwanti, Pooriya, Kapi, Neelambari, in the same sequence regularly for a duration of 1hr per day for a one month period) before going to bed. The music had an easy flowing melody, and a tempo similar to the resting heart beat. It was not dissonant, pleasing to the ear, with no major changes in pitch, dynamics, or rhythm, supporting its listeners without making any demands on them. After one month of continuous listening to the music prescribed for her, she was able to cut down the dose of Zolpidem to 2.5 mg per day. Before she was exposed to music therapy, 2.5 mg/day was not sufficient for her- she used to wake up at 3am in the mornings, lying down completely awake. She was also able to overcome the feelings of hopelessness, and expressed more self confidence in her ability to deal with issues.

According to a study conducted by the Baya Karve Women’s study centre in Pune, India, such an addiction is common among educated women with marital discord, pertaining to the 31 to 40 age group. The study says that high levels of stress coupled with a sense of loneliness, and a failure to open up and release pent-up emotions are the contributing factors for sleeping pill addiction among women. Sometimes, old prescriptions of sleeping pills are used repeatedly without consulting the physician who initially recommended it.

Extra-marital affairs and a sense of loneliness are found to be the prime emotional factors that have landed some in the red zone of addiction with an overriding feeling of self-pity.

Signs that a person is having problems with sleeping medication include: difficulty falling asleep, an inability to fall asleep without the pills after months of taking them, daytime sleepiness, feeling poorly rested despite sleeping, headaches, etc. In fact, anything that makes one feel chained to the medication should set off warning bells into full swing.

One should be aware that as he/she comes off sleeping pills, his suppressed REM returns and his dreams will be more vivid than usual. This will calm over time but may cause some Vol 1 Issue 4 December 2012

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disturbance initially.

How does music therapy help in cases with insomnia ?

For insomnia, music therapy is one of the most promising natural remedies, which has been proved to help people defeat sleepless nights. A new research carried out by the Gail C Mornhinweg, PhD has shown that music therapy is scientifically sound as it can help you to sleep better and deeper. In the study, a group of adults suffering from insomnia has been followed by the researcher for about 6 months. In the group, no one was taking medications or sleeping pills to help them sleep or trying other therapies for insomnia.

All the adults involved in the study were only listening to relaxing music before going to bed. All the participants in the study excluding one have reported getting asleep faster and sleeping better and longer than normal when they listened to soothing and relaxing music previous to going to bed. Others, who were not exposed to music, reported that sleeplessness returned on the nights. The study found that approximately 80 percent of people had a positive response to music therapy which was shown to significantly boost melatonin levels.

Music therapy or listening to soothing music can help you to concentrate on the sounds you hear in place of the thoughts in your mind.

Sergio Castillo-Perez et. al (2010) from Mexico preformed a controlled experiment comparing music therapy treatment to psychotherapy. In the experiment a total of 79 participants were tested to have low to medium level depression according to the Zung Depression Scale. 41 of these patients were assigned to music therapy treatment, while 38 patients were assigned to psychotherapy. Participants taking part in musical therapy treatment were asked to listen to selections of classical and baroque music for 50 minutes at home every day, as well as an additional group session at the hospital every week. Participants taking part in the psychotherapy treatment attended personalized, one on one sessions with a trained expert psychologist for 30 minutes every week. In both groups, evaluations measuring depressive symptoms were conducted weekly as well. The results after 8 total sessions were in favor of musical therapy. Out of the original 41 participants undergoing musical therapy treatment, 29 reported improvement, 4 reported no improvement, and 8 had abandoned the study. Out of the original 38 participants undergoing psychotherapy treatment, 12 reported improvement, 16 reported no improvement, and 10 abandoned the study(4). This experiment provides more evidence supporting music therapy as a legitimate treatment option for depression.

The neuro-scientific basis of music therapy- a “heuristic working factor model for music therapy�: Five factors which contribute to the effects of music therapyThese modulating factors are attention, emotion, cognition, behavior, and communication.

1) Attention modulation: Music can automatically capture attention and thus distract attention from stimuli prone to evoke negative experiences (such as pain, anxiety, worry, sadness, etc.). This factor appears to account, at least partly, for anxiety-, and pain-reducing effects of music listening during medical procedures ( Nelson et.al.,2008; Klassen et.al.,2008).

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2) Emotion modulation: Studies using functional neuroimaging have shown that music can modulate activity of all major limbic- and paralimbic brain structures, that is, of structures crucially involved in the initiation, generation, maintenance, termination, and modulation of emotions. These findings have implications for music-therapeutic approaches for the treatment of affective disorders, such as depression, pathologic anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) because these disorders are partly related to dysfunction of limbic structures, such as the amygdala, and paralimbic structures, such as the orbito-frontal cortex. This factor is also closely linked to peripheral physiological effects. Emotions always have effects on the vegetative (or autonomic) nervous system, the hormonal (endocrine) system, and the immune system. Systematic knowledge of the effects that music listening and music making have on these systems is still lacking, but because of the power of music to evoke and modulate emotions, it is conceivable that music therapy can be used for the treatment of disorders related to dysfunctions and dysbalances within these systems (Thaut MH et.al.,2009).

(3) Cognition modulation: This factor includes memory processes related to music (such as encoding, storage, and decoding of musical information, and of events associated with musical experiences), as well as processes related to the analysis of musical syntax and musical meaning. This factor might contribute to the effects of music therapy on the facilitation of Alzheimer’s patients’ adaptation to residing in long term care centers (Gerdner and Swanson,1993).

(4) Behavior modulation: This factor accounts for the evocation and conditioning of behavior (such as movement patterns involved in walking, speaking, grasping, etc.) with music.

Modulation of behaviors and actions is likely to affect cognitive processes, and therefore cognitive processes can be modulated by the learning of different or new behavioral and action patterns. A similar relation presumably exists between actions and emotions (Gottfried Schlaug et al. and Eckart Altenm¨uller et al).

(5) Communication modulation: The numerous effects of music on activity in a large variety of brain structures accounts for what is referred to as cognitization. Such “cognitization” induced by music listening could be responsible for the effects of music on the recovery of stroke patients (Forsblom et.al.,2009)

Let us review some effects that are usually evoked when listening to music, and which play important roles in the emergence of beneficial effects during music therapy.

These effects originate from three domains: emotion, perception-action mediation, and social cognition.

Emotion: With regards to emotional processing, previous functional neuroimaging studies have shown that listening to music can have effects on the activity of all limbic and para limbic structures (that is, of core structures of emotional processing) in both musicians and in non musicians.

In a PET experiment, Blood and Zatorre used naturalistic music to induce extremely pleasurable experiences during music listening, such as “chills” or “shivers down the spine.

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Activity changes were observed in central structures of the limbic system (amygdala and hippocampus). The finding that music modulates amygdala activity is important for two reasons: First, it provides evidence for the assumption that music can induce “real” emotions (because the activity of core structures of emotion processing is modulated by music). Second, it strengthens the empirical basis for music-therapeutic approaches for the treatment of affective disorders, such as depression and pathologic anxiety, because these disorders are partly related to dysfunction of the amygdala. The network comprising amygdala, hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, and temporal poles has been observed in several studies investigating emotions induced by music. This suggests that these structures play a consistent role in the emotional processing of music. The activity changes in the (anterior) hippocampal formation evoked by listening to music are relevant for music therapy because patients with depression or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder show a volume reduction of the hippocampal formation (associated with a loss of hippocampal neurons, and blockage of neurogenesis in the hippocampus), and individuals with reduced tender, positive emotionality show reduced activity changes in the hippocampus in response to music. It is plausible that music therapy can help to reanimate activity in the hippocampus, prevent the death of hippocampal neurons, and lift the blockage of hippocampal neurogenesis (Sammler et.al.,2007). The hippocampus (perhaps particularly the anterior hippocampal formation) plays an important role for the generation of tender, positive emotions and happiness, and, according to several authors, one of the great powers of music is to evoke hippocampal activity related to happiness.

Activity in the nucleus accumbens(or NAc innervated by dopaminergic brain stem neurons located mainly in the ventral tegmental area of the midbrain) has been shown to correlate with self-reported positive emotion elicited by a reward cue. It has been suggested that, in humans, NAc activity corresponds to experiences of “fun” (which should be differentiated from experiences of “happiness”). Music therapy can make use of such experiences, for example to elevate the mood in individuals with mood disorders ( Koelsch et.al.,2006). It is important to add that emotional processes always have effects on the vegetative nervous system, as well as on the hormonal system, which, in turn, modulates immune system activity. All these effects are potentially relevant for music-therapeutic applications because they open the possibility for using music to achieve beneficial effect in patients with autonomic, endocrine, or (auto)immune disorders.

Perception-action mediation: The premotor cortex is a critical structure for perceptionaction mediation. Premotor activity during listening to music is modulated by the emotional valence of the music, suggesting that perception-action mediation is modulated by emotional processes (Haslinger et.al.,2005) . Music perception evokes a number of action-related processes. Perception-action (“mirror”) mechanisms are relevant for music therapy, because these mechanisms serve the learning of actions, the understanding of actions, and the prediction of actions of others. Activation and training of perceptionaction mechanisms can be used in patients with neurologic disorders: for example, melodic Harmony Bulletin

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intonation therapy can help patients with Broca’s aphasia to regain language production, and music can be used in various ways for the recovery of fine and gross motor skills in stroke patients (Eckart Altenm¨uller et. al). The premotor cortex is also involved in a number of cognitive functions. The rehearsal of verbal information relies in part on premotor activity.

Other cognitive functions in which the premotor cortex is involved comprise the analysis, recognition, and prediction of sequential auditory information, and—perhaps related to this—the processing of musical structure (or musical syntax).

Social cognition and music: Listening to music automatically engages areas dedicated to mental state attribution (in the attempt to understand the composer’s intentions). Studies have shown that the meaning of music may be derived in part from the understanding that every note reflects an intentional act, which signals personal relevance to the artist representing a communication between the creator and the perceiver of the music. A study on the therapeutic effects of music making for individuals with impulsive aggression or moderate intermittent explosive disorder has revealed that music and music therapy has beneficial effects on the psychological and physiological health of individuals ( Koelsch et.al.,2008).Since music listening activates a multitude of brain structures involved in cognitive, sensori-motor, and emotional processing, we can understand that it can easily modulate and induce changes in the activity of the neuronal networks involved in sleeping pill, alcohol and other addictions. Indian ragas endowed with sedative characteristics are capable of harmonizing the activity in these neuronal structures by modulating the

dysfunctions arising out of addiction and drug abuse.

REFERENCES 1.Altenm¨uller, E., J. Marco-Pallares, T.F. M¨unte & S. Schneider. 2009. Neural reorganization underlies improvement of stroke-induced motor dysfunctions by musicsupported therapy. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. Neurosciences and Music III–Disorders and Vol 1 Issue 4 December 2012

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Plasticity.1169: 395–405.

2.Blood, A. & R.J. Zatorre.( 2001). Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion. Proc. Natl.Acad. Sci. USA 98: 11818–11823.

3.Castillo-Perez, Sergio, Virginia Gomez-Perez, et al. “Effects of music therapy on depression compared with psychotherapy.” Arts in Psychotherapy. 37.5 (2010): 387-391.

4.Forsblom, A., S. Laitinen, T. S¨ark¨am¨o & M. Tervaniemi.(2009). Therapeutic role of music listening in stroke rehabilitation. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. Neurosciences and Music III–Disorders and Plasticity.1169: 426–430.

5.Gail C Mornhinweg (2009); Creating Balance in a World of Stress: Six Key Habits to Avoid in Order to Reduce Stress.. Susan J. Del Gatto( Ed.) Bloomington,IN ,USA. 6. Gerdner, L.A. & E.A. Swanson. 1993. Effects of individualized music on confused and agitated elderly patients. Arch.Psychiatr. Nurs. 7: 284–291.

7. Haslinger, B., P. Erhard, E. Altenm¨uller, et al. 2005.Transmodal sensorimotor networks during action observation in professional pianists. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 17:282–293.

8.Klassen, J.A., Y. Liang, L. Tjosvold, et al. 2008. Music for pain and anxiety in children undergoing medical procedures: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.

Ambul. Pediatr. 8: 117–128.

9 . Koelsch, S., T. Fritz, D.Y. von Cramon, et al.( 2006 ). Investigating emotion with music: an fMRI study.Hum. Brain Mapp. 27: 239–250.

10. Koelsch, S., D. Sammler, S. Jentschke & W.A.Siebel. 2008. EEG correlates of moderate Intermittent Explosive Disorder. Clin. Neurophysiol. 119: 151–162.

11. Nelson, A., W. Hartl, K.-W. Jauch, et al. 2008. The impact of music on hypermetabolism in critical illness.Curr. Opin. Clin. Nutr. Metab. Care 11: 790–794.

12. Sammler, D., M. Grigutsch, T. Fritz & S. Koelsch.2007. Music and emotion: electrophysiological correlates of the processing of pleasant and unpleasant music. Psychophysiology 44: 293–304.

13. Schlaug, G., S. Marchina & A. Norton. 2009. Evidence for plasticity in white matter tracts of chronic aphasic patients undergoing intense intonation-based speech therapy.

Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci.Neurosciences and Music III–Disorders and Plasticity. 1169: 385–394.

14.

Thaut,M.H., J.C. Gardiner, D.Holmberg, et al.(2009) Neurologic music therapy improves executive function and psychosocial function in traumatic brain injury rehabilitation. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. Neurosciences and Music III– Disorders and Plasticity. 1169: 406–416.

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Rag Bilaskhani Todi Relieves Psychological Distress In Adolescents With Increased Neuroticism And Decreased Agreeableness A research project from the Music Medicine Unit, MGMCRI

Introduction

Music is widely used for three different purposes, viz., emotional use ( the extent to which music is used for inducing moods that change an individual’s experienced emotionality), cognitive or intellectual use of music ( the extent to which an individual listens to music in an analytical and intellectual manner), and background or social uses of music.1 Music’s emotional affect, which is people’s primary motivation for listening, may prepare them to act on prevailing conditions to attain or maintain a state of well-being.2For adolescents, the major gratification they get from music is the relief of tension and diversion from concerns.3Music can evoke powerful emotional reactions in people, and listening to music affects the emotional and cognitive experience of an individual as well as physiological arousal.4 It has also been stated that music is used as a coping mechanism in emotionally unstable individuals, in contrast to those scoring high on emotional stability who are even tempered, and therefore may not need music to cope with emotions.5,6

According to certain authors, the three factors regarding the use of music( emotional, cognitive and social) are associated with the Big Five personality traits (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness),7 the above studies confirming that there are a number of personality predictors of music use, which may generalize across cultures. These authors have reported that positive correlations exist between Neuroticism and emotional use of music, and Openness to Experience and cognitive or intellectual use of music. A study conducted in Malaysia by ChamorroPremuzic et al. has found that individuals higher in Neuroticism are more likely to use music for emotional regulation.8 The positive association between Neuroticism and reports of using music for emotional regulation is consistent with the idea that individuals higher in Neuroticism experience higher intensity of emotional affect, especially negative emotions.9

The Big Five personality traits provide a comprehensive profile of an individual’s behavioral tendencies, including their consistent affective and cognitive patterns, and though several studies have examined the relationship between personality factors and musical taste,10,11 to date no references are available regarding the association between personality traits and response to music therapy. The present study was carried out to determine whether there are any definitive links between the different personality traits and response to music therapy using classical Indian ragas.

Aim of the study

To determine the association between the Big Five personality traits and response to music therapy based on classical Indian ragas, as evaluated by the improvements in selfrated anxiety and depression scores before and after music administration.

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MATERIALS AND METHODS

28 adolescent students (15 males, 13 females) who recently joined the medical career with signs and symptoms of clinical anxiety and depression as evaluated by the SelfRating Scale for Anxiety and depression (SAS and SDS) devised by Zung12, 13 were chosen for the study. Written informed consent was obtained from all the participants. The exclusion criteria included chronic physical ailments such as hypertension, obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, or history of drug abuse. The anxiety and depression scores before and after 21 days of music administration (30 minutes twice a day, through head phones ) were compared. The personality traits of the students was assessed using the NEO-FFI of Costa & Mc Crae.14Association between the personality traits and the difference in anxiety and depression scores before and after 21 days of music listening was calculated using Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient. The results have been tabulated below:

Results

Correlation with SAS N E O A C

r= 0.32* 0.02 0.2 - 0.31* 0.15 Correlation with SDS

r= 0.16 0.04 0.1 - 0.3* 0.05 * denotes significant correlation coefficient.

Table-1

Discussion

The results from our study indicate that response to music therapy is associated with the personality traits of Agreeableness and Neuroticism among students of the adolescent age group. Significant negative correlation exists between those with low scores on the Agreeableness scale and indices for anxiety and depression ( r= -0.3 for anxiety scores; r= -0.2 for depression scores). Positive correlation is found to exist between those with high scores on the Neuroticism scale (r=0.3 for anxiety scores ) and improvement in the anxiety indices when assessed before and after the music therapy sessions. The low correlations could be attributed to the small sample size, which, if increased may yield more significant associations. It is thus evident that participants with low Agreeableness and high Neuroticism scores demonstrate a good response to music therapy using classical ragas. While Neuroticism has been linked to brain mechanisms associated with avoidance, fearful temperaments, or negative emotionality, low Agreeableness is associated with lack of consideration for others and decreased empathy.14,15 Both the above characteristics being linked to negative emotional states, the notion that music is used as a coping strategy is reinforced, as emotionally stable people are believed to be even tempered and not the type to let things get them; therefore they may not need music to cope with emotions. This could be the reason for the lack of good response to music therapy observed in participants with personality traits not related to negative emotionality. The increased receptivity for music therapy in those individuals with elevated Neuroticism and decreased Agreeableness may be connected with their emotional experience induced during music listening. Though Harmony Bulletin

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autonomic and electrophysiological recordings have provided time-sensitive biological markers for emotion perception in music,16,17 the degree to which biological markers predict the multidimensional psychological experience of musical emotion is unclear. Scherer18 put forth the component process model of emotion which consists of the “emotion response triad” of physiological arousal, motor expression, and subjective feelings. Further, a given song might elicit one emotion from participant A and a completely different sentiment from participant B,17 and these variations have been correlated with potential personality differences.19

The above findings have been reinforced by recent studies which have suggested possible connections between Agreeableness and emotion.20 In a study conducted by Tobin et al.,21 both Neuroticism and Agreeableness emerged as significant predictors of emotional experience, when the participants’ degree of emotional perception was assessed using standard psycho- physiological methods for examining responses to both positively and negatively charged emotional materials. Participants lower in Agreeableness rated the psycho-physiological measures as more pleasant than did participants higher in Agreeableness when positively charged emotional measures were used. They concluded that Agreeableness was related to nonverbal psycho-physiological measures of emotional responses.

According to Rothbart and Bates,22 individual differences in Agreeableness may have their origins in temperament systems that control reactions to frustration. Therefore we can hypothesize that a good response to music therapy using pleasant, soothing classical ragas infused with love and compassion, is associated with the inherent personality traits, namely Agreeableness and Neuroticism. The findings from the above study reinforce the fact that the brain is built to changes in response to mental training due the phenomenon of neural plasticity, and therefore it is possible to train a mind to be happy in those individuals endowed with personality traits linked to negative emotional states. More studies involving the association between the personality traits which are genetically determined, and receptivity to music therapy are needed to validate these findings.

REFERENCES 1. Chamorro- Premuzic T., & Furnham A. (2007). Personality and music: Can traits explain how people use music in everyday life? British journal of Psychology, 98, 175-85.

2. Krumhansl C. L. (2002). Music: A link between cognition and emotion. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 45-50.

3. White A. (1985). Meaning and effects of listening to popular music: Implications for counseling. Journal of Counseling and Development, 64, 65-69.

4. Labbé E., Schmidt N., Babin J., & Pharr M. (2007). Coping with stress: The effectiveness of different types of music. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 32, 163-168.

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5.Ballard M. E., & Coates S. (1995). The immediate effects of homicidal, suicidal, and nonviolent heavy metal and rap songs on the moods of college students. Youth & Society, 27(2), 148-168.

6. North, AC., Hargreaves D.J. & Hargreaves J.J. (2004). The uses of music in everyday life.

Music Perception, 22, 63–99.

7. Dollinger S., (1993). Personality and music preference: Extraversion and excitement seeking or openness to experience ? Psychology of music, 21, 73-77.

8. Chamorro-Premuzic, Swami V., Furnham A, and Maakip I (2009). Journal of Individual differences, 30(1): 20-27.

9. Costa and Mc Crae, (1992).

10.Schwartz, K.D. & Fouts, G.T. (2003). Music preferences, personality style, and developmental issues of adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 32, 205–213.

11. Little P.,& Zuckerman M. (1986). Sensation seeking and music preferences. Personality and Individual Differences, 7, 575-577.

12. Zung WWK.(1971) A rating instrument for anxiety disorders. Psychosomatics. ; 12(6): 371-379 13. Zung, WW (1965). “A self-rating depression scale”. Archives of General Psychiatry 12: 63–70.

14. Costa PT., Jr.,& Mc Crae RR (1992). NEO PI-R and NEO-FFI professional manual.

Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc. 15. Peabody D.; Goldberg L.R. (1989). “Some determinants of factor structures from personality-trait descriptors”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology : 57 (3): 552– 567.

16. Bernardi L., Porta C., & Sleight P. (2006). Cardiovascular, cerebro-vascular, and respiratory changes induced by different types of music in musicians and non-musicians: The importance of silence. Heart, 92, 445-452.

17. 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, 98, 11818-11823.

18. Scherer KR. (2004). Which emotions can be induced by music? What are the underlying mechanisms? And how can we measure them? Journal of New Music Research, 33, 239-251.

19. Rentfrow PJ., & Gosling SD. (2003). The do re mi’s of everyday life: The structure and personality correlates of music preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 1236-1256.

20. Graziano, WG., & Eisenberg, N.(1997). Agreeableness: A dimension of personality. In R. Hogan, J. Johnson, & S. Briggs (Eds.), Handbook of personality psychology, pp. 795-824.

San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

21. Tobin RM, Graziano GW, Vanman EJ, and Tassinary LG, (2000). Personality, Emotional Experience, and Efforts to Control Emotions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: 79(4), 656-669.

22. Rothbart MK., & Bates J. (1998). Temperament. In W. Damon ( Series Ed.) & N. Eisenberg ( Vol.Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol.3, Social, emotional, and personality development ( 5th ed., pp.105-176). New York: Wiley.

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The Big Five Personality Traits Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness

Extraversion Openness to Experience Neuroticism Agreeableness Conscientiousness

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PATRON Shri.M K RAJAGOPALAN

ADVISORY BOARD

EDITORIAL BOARD

MEMBERS

Prof. GUNASEKARAN D R

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Dr. BALACHANDAR M

Prof. MUTHURANGAN G

Prof. BARATHI P

Dr. CHETAN ANAND

Prof. ANANTHAKRISHAN N

EXECUTIVE EDITORS

Mrs. ASHA SURESH BABU

Prof. MADANMOHAN

Prof. SRINIVASAN A R

DESIGN & LAYOUT

Ms. UMA A N

Mr. GEORGE FERNANDEZ

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