Abstract
This review presents research findings showing that music is a unique domain to assess perception, reward, emotion, and associated physiological reactions and neural circuitry of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). There is growing evidence, reported in several studies in this review article, indicating that music is a relative strength of people with ASD including musical pitch perception, musical memory, and identification of music-evoked emotions. Listening to music activates neural circuits of reward and emotion response, which are described. Research presented shows adults with ASD also activate these systems when listening to music, although there may be developmental differences in the physiological and neural response to music in childhood and adolescence alongside typical behavioral response. Nonetheless, studies reviewed lend support to the use of music therapy and education for people with ASD, specifically to improve social skills and communication. Neural correlates of response to music therapy and education are also discussed. Taken together, findings reviewed provide evidence for music as a strength-based approach for ASD to assess reward and emotion response and as a powerful tool for intervention.
Highlights
This review presents research findings showing that music is a unique domain to assess perception, reward, emotion, and associated physiological reactions and neural circuitry of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
Given that joint music making elicits nonverbal communication, the Music-based Scale for Autism Diagnosis (MUSAD) can inform the differential diagnosis between ASD and intellectual developmental disorders with minimally verbal older adults who do not have the language skills to complete the advanced modules of the ADOS-2 and for whom the materials of the lower modules are not age appropriate (Bergmann et al, 2015, 2016)
Adults with ASD show typical activation of neural circuitry associated with reward and emotion processing including nucleus accumbens (NAc), ventral tegmental area (VTA), ventral striatum, amygdala, medial prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortex
Summary
In 1995, paleontologist Ivan Turk found a 43,000–82,000 year old bone with characteristic wholes, which many believe to have been a flute (Wong, 1997). This archeological evidence found in northwestern Slovenia suggests that music-making dates back at least to the times of Neanderthals (Huron, 2001). Related to its social role, music is a powerful medium to convey emotions (Meyer, 1956). The fact that emotions are communicated through music is one of the reasons people listen to music and why people report that music listening is rewarding (Juslin and Sloboda, 2001)
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