Rock influences spatial memory in adult rats, while classical music do not

Abstract

Music can be used as a therapeutic tool and has several effects in cognitive and physiologicalfunctions. The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of different musical pieces in spatialmemory in adult male rats. A T maze was used to investigate spatial memory, with 2h and6h inter trial interval between training and testing phases. Before training, animals wereexposed to an active or relaxing musical stimulus corresponding to rock and classical pieces.It was found that in the experiment with 2h interval, animals explore more the novel arm incomparison with the other arm, which indicated that animals still had a good spatial memory.This was not observed in rats that were exposed to the relaxing rock piece, which couldindicate that this stimulus diminished memory. With the 6h interval the rats explored botharms equally, except animals that were exposed to the activating rock piece of music whichindicated a slightly enhance in memory. Thus, there were found different effects of musiccorresponding to the time of interval and the stimulus characteristics. This data providesinformation to use music as a possible treatment to modulate memory.