The Surprising Brain-immune Connection
Art nourishes the soul, but Patricia Izbicki, Ph.D., wants to know whether it can help brain health and resilience.
“Artistic resilience is about using creative expression to enrich your life and possibly protect your brain health as you grow older,” said Izbicki, assistant professor of medical education at Florida Atlantic’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine.
As a graduate student, Izbicki examined the connection between music training, cognition and the motor system, which comprises parts of the nervous system responsible for movement, in aging musicians. She’s currently building on that work as an assistant professor in collaboration with Eyleen Braaten, executive director of the international nonprofit Giving Voice, which organizes choirs that are sensitive to the needs of people with dementia.
Evidence suggests that group singing enhances emotional wellbeing and social engagement. Izbicki and Braaten will extend these studies to see if singing could benefit a group of adults with Alzheimer’s disease and related diseases (ADRD) and their caregivers who live in rural Minnesota and Wisconsin. They are now conducting a pilot study with the help of a small grant from the Renée Fleming Foundation that is administered at Florida Atlantic by Michael Dobbs, MD, chair of the clinical neurosciences department and associate dean of clinical affairs in the College of Medicine.
The team is evaluating ADRD participants and their caregivers before and after a 12-week period of 90-minute vocal sessions led by Giving Voice-trained directors. Changes in cognitive, emotional and social factors are assessed with clinically validated tests and semi-structured interviews.
“We’re also looking at whether a short intervention like this helps patients require less health care. Do they go to the doctor less often and stay out of the emergency room?” Izbicki said. Reducing the need for health care visits would be a huge benefit to rural patients who typically live far from medical centers. If the pilot study yields positive results, Izbicki and Braaten plan to conduct longer-term studies and randomized control trials that would further build on the pilot results. They said they also hope to expand the Giving Voice approach to other locations, such as South Florida.
“Within the last five years, the importance of the arts on brain health has really come into the spotlight,” Izbicki said. “There’s a momentum, and I think that the timing in terms of the public’s interest and engagement is right.”