Weekly Roundup: Stress the Immune System and the Brain, Wonderful Benefits of Music, Social Rejection in the Brain, Sharing Your Secrets

Weekly round up of recent research into the brain, psychology, and behaviour.

Some themes have come up a few times recently in the research such as that on music and its stress-relieving impacts. But let’s start off on how stress can impact the immune system, which in turn impacts the brain, before we look again at some of the positive benefits of music - which in this case includes better brain health in old age.

Stress Impacts the Immune System and This Impacts the Brain

On one hand we could argue that stress begins in the brain - as I reported last week, perceptions of stress change the stress response. Similarly the stress response begins in the brain. However, this stimulates a whole bodily response and an international collaboration has now uncovered the mechanisms of how chronic stress impacts the brain to change neuronal responses that can lead to symptoms such as social withdrawal - which in turn can be a major contributor to developing mental illness.

Flurin Cathomas of the University of Zurich, here in Switzerland, and research colleagues showed that an enzyme released during stress impacts brain function.

"We were able to show that stress increases the amount of the matrix metalloproteinase-8 (MMP-8), an enzyme in the blood of mice. The same changes were found in patients with depression,"

This research, in mice notabene, leads to behavioral changes: they withdraw and avoid social contact such as is common in depression.

More importantly they found the specific mechanisms by which this happens: stress increases the migration of a specific type of white blood cell called monocytes into the vascular system of the brain, particularly into the reward center regions.

These monocytes produce an enzyme called MMP-8 which is involved in the restructuring and regulation of the net-like frame, the extracellular matrix, that surrounds neurons in the brain (see I keep saying the brain is complex - neurons are surrounded by nets which help protect them and enable them to function effectively).

MMP-8 then penetrates brain tissue from the blood, changes this extracellular matrix, which in turn disrupts functions of these neurons and this leads to behaviours that are related to depressive symptoms in humans.

Fascinating to see this brain-body and specifically brain immune system interactions - and shows that many of these symptoms are not just in the mind. All the more important to change perceptions of stress and manage it effectively.

Which brings me back nicely to a topic that I have written about a few times over recent weeks - namely of music and stress-reducing properties of this reported on after a poll by the University of Michigan.

The Wonderful Benefits of Music

The poll (of 2’657 adults aged between 50 and 80) was on healthy aging but this included questions on music - which is not a standard set of questions, it should be noted. In fact we may be missing a trick here for as one of the team, Prof. Joel Howard, says "Music has the power to bring joy and meaning to life. It is woven into the very fabric of existence for all of humankind".

The results are impressive: about 75% of people age 50 to 80 say music helps them relieve stress or relax, and 65% say it helps their mental health or mood. But moreover jut about everyone (98%) said they benefit in at least one health-related way from engaging with music.

"Music is a universal language that has powerful potential to improve wellbeing," said Sarah Lenz Lock, senior vice president of Policy and Brain Health at AARP and executive director of the Global Council on Brain Health. "AARP's own research shows that music can play an important role in healthy aging by improving our moods, fostering social connections and, potentially, enriching our brain health."

Another study on a similar topic has also just been published - in this they note of the benefits on the brain of playing a musical instruments into older age.

Playing a Musical Linked to Better Brain Health in Older Adults