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. 2019 Mar 27;10:277. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2019.00277

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Copyright © 2019 Metcalf, Huntsman, Garcia, Kochanski, Chikinda, Watanabe, Underwood, Vanegas, Smith, White and Bulaj.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Working model of mechanisms by which musical compositions can exert their analgesic and anticonvulsant activities. This model serves as a platform for testing a number of specific hypotheses; not addressed in the present investigation. The auditory system processes acoustic waves with specific rhythm, sequences, phrases and punctuation which generate action potentials in the nervous system. The role of specific musical structures (rhythm and pitch) in K.448 was studied in rodents and humans (85), whereas high periodicity was proposed to account for the antiseizure effects (73). Musical tempo modulate emotions (113) which can in turn affect pain processing (114, 115). Exposure to K.448 was shown to activate the parasympathetic nervous system (33). Music was shown to modulate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, decrease stress hormone cortisol and increase expression of BDNF in the hippocampus (44, 57, 85, 94, 95, 103). The roles of prefrontal cortex (PFC) in pain processing (116) and music processing (97) have been studied. Further studies are required to test mechanism(s) of action of music-enhanced analgesia and antiseizure activities.