Abstract
Besides the pure pleasure of watching a dance performance, dance as a whole-body movement is becoming increasingly popular for health-related interventions. However, the science-based evidence for improvements in health or well-being through dance is still ambiguous and little is known about the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms. This may be partly related to the fact that previous studies mostly examined the neurophysiological effects of imagination and observation of dance rather than the physical execution itself. The objective of this pilot study was to investigate acute effects of a physically executed dance with its different components (recalling the choreography and physical activity to music) on the electrical brain activity and its functional connectivity using electroencephalographic (EEG) analysis. Eleven dance-inexperienced female participants first learned a Modern Jazz Dance (MJD) choreography over three weeks (1 h sessions per week). Afterwards, the acute effects on the EEG brain activity were compared between four different test conditions: physically executing the MJD choreography with music, physically executing the choreography without music, imaging the choreography with music, and imaging the choreography without music. Every participant passed each test condition in a randomized order within a single day. EEG rest-measurements were conducted before and after each test condition. Considering time effects the physically executed dance without music revealed in brain activity analysis most increases in alpha frequency and in functional connectivity analysis in all frequency bands. In comparison, physically executed dance with music as well as imagined dance with music led to fewer increases and imagined dance without music provoked noteworthy brain activity and connectivity decreases at all frequency bands. Differences between the test conditions were found in alpha and beta frequency between the physically executed dance and the imagined dance without music as well as between the physically executed dance with and without music in the alpha frequency. The study highlights different effects of a physically executed dance compared to an imagined dance on many brain areas for all measured frequency bands. These findings provide first insights into the still widely unexplored field of neurological effects of dance and encourages further research in this direction.
Highlights
The human ability to dance is an inherent activity of humans, since these paintings show wholebody movements as they are used in dance (Appenzeller, 1998; Ward, 2002; Bramble and Lieberman, 2004)
Recent studies indicate a supportive effect of dance in conjunction with medical therapies for breast cancer (Dibbell-Hope, 2000; Sandel et al, 2005), diabetes (Murrock et al, 2009), fall prevention (Franco et al, 2016; Merom et al, 2016), dementia (Guzmán-García et al, 2013; Barnes et al, 2015), or brain plasticity (Rehfeld et al, 2018)
Since we investigate the grossmotor activity dance, which is barely examined in EEG studies in its physically executed form, we present on the other hand studies which analyzed other gross-motor activities like running or cycling
Summary
The human ability to dance is an inherent activity of humans, since these paintings show wholebody movements as they are used in dance (Appenzeller, 1998; Ward, 2002; Bramble and Lieberman, 2004). The forms of expression of dance differ in numerous categories or styles, such as classical dance, modern dance, folk dance, spiritual dance. What most of these dance categories have in common is that there is a movement of the whole body to music (Brown et al, 2006). Recent studies indicate a supportive effect of dance in conjunction with medical therapies for breast cancer (Dibbell-Hope, 2000; Sandel et al, 2005), diabetes (Murrock et al, 2009), fall prevention (Franco et al, 2016; Merom et al, 2016), dementia (Guzmán-García et al, 2013; Barnes et al, 2015), or brain plasticity (Rehfeld et al, 2018). In its multi-faceted ways, dance is assumed to promote human creativity (Fink and Woschnjak, 2011), social competence (Lobo and Winsler, 2006), enjoyment (Gao et al, 2013a,b), contributes to well-being (Mansfield et al, 2018) and can lead to the experience of flow (Bernardi et al, 2018)
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