Last week I did not meet up with Avital and Dorothy to discuss the weighted blankets, due to me being sick. During the meeting today we looked at two machines that respectively made the text on a sheet of paper more immersive and accessible for those, not only, with disabilities, but also those who are more of a visual learner. 

This past week I looked at several papers on weighted blankets, from how they work to how they can be improved. The texts I focused on were:

https://research.aota.org/ajot/article/74/2/7402205010p1/6662/Weighted-Blanket-Use-A-Systematic-Review

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209549642030131X?via%3Dihub

Each respective text explored the effects and efficiencies of the weighted blanket as a therapeutical device. What was found was that weighted blankets DID in fact decrease anxiety within patients who had an above-average anxiety level. Moreover, in terms of more everyday uses for weighted blankets, the second study depicted results that saw the use of weighted blankets during deep sleeping hours having an impact on anxiety levels during sleep.

For the coming week, I plan to look at the different accessories and tech that can be added to weighted blankets to make them more interactive/immersive, and how that might affect their efficiency on anxiety levels and many other psychological disorders.

This week I decided to join Avital and Dorothy on their project involving weighted blankets. During the meeting, we discuss various skills and techniques that we might need in order to make our own weighted blankets. We planned to have a workshop “Sewing 101” this coming weekend

During the week, I looked online on what are weighted blankets plus how and what makes them work as they do. I looked over this paper giving a systematic review on weighted blankets.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32204779/

After looking online and reading papers on weighted blankets, I found out that there are many people who do not believe that weighted blankets can be used to help people rather it could hurt and damage their bodies. After reading the paper mentioned above, I concluded that since weighted blankets can potentially be used to treat psychological disorders such as insomnia or anxiety, it might be a case-by-case solution.

The image here is a list of potential psychological disorders that have been proven to be solved by using weighted blankets.

However, since there are still limitations to weighted blankets and what they can do, I plan to think of possible ideas that could potentially make weighted blankets more of a commodity when it comes to dealing with psychological issues such as anxiety.

In the second and third week I did not participate/join the meetings due to midterms and multiple other assignments. However, I did continue to browse amongst different research paper on whether or not music is able to serve as something that can “reprogram” neurons within a human brain.

Throughout week 2, I looked through multiple research papers regarding music as a neuroagent, these included:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5984303/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2996135/

However, I discovered that over time, brain plasticity worsens, and musics doesn’t really have any major effects on a grown adult’s brain, relative to a younger more underdeveloped brain of a toddler. 

Eventually, as I dug deeper into the topic of neurogenesis and neuroscience, I was met again with the topic of how seasonal songbirds are able to increase neurogenesis within their brains. These research papers can be found in the references and literature insight tabs. 

However, I was met with a dead end, considering there were no research papers to be found that related these songbirds’ brains to human ones, and moreover, there were no evidence supporting that music could be used to “actually” reprogram the human brain. Maybe its the fact that modern technology hasn’t reached a certain milestone yet, a milestone in which we would be able to produce music both pleasing to the ear and the brain. 

In the next meeting, I plan to change my direction to more concrete and in-person activities and look into joining a group that is currently working on a project that I could share with. However, I still plan to continue browsing the internet and research blog sites on when “music technology” is able to make changes to our brain, improving healthcare.

Throughout this semester, I’ve indulged myself in researching more about the topics surrounding multisensory rooms. After a few months, the specific tools and techniques that require music really piqued my interest. Therefore, I spent the last few weeks researching music theory, how it works, its effects, down to its very origin. 

Learning that music theory began from the research on songbirds and how they use music and a specific part of their brains to re-remember the songs they sing every season, I plan to read a lot more sources involving research on songbirds and how they related to the part of our brain affected by Alzheimer’s. 

https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/447048

https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-happens-brain-alzheimers-disease#:~:text=In%20Alzheimer’s%20disease%2C%20as%20neurons,significant%20loss%20of%20brain%20volume.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2650497/

Through the next few months of summer break, to understand how we could potentially use music to “heal” a human brain, I plan to read more of these papers that talk about how different brain diseases affect the brain. 

This week I worked on researching the specifics of how music affects our brain, in terms of psychologically and emotionally. Several blogs and papers piqued my interest.

https://www.aimm.edu/blog/how-does-music-affect-your-mood

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3741536/

https://www.ucf.edu/pegasus/your-brain-on-music/

https://www.sclhealth.org/blog/2019/04/how-listening-to-certain-songs-can-impact-our-brain-and-affect-our-mood/

It’s common knowledge that music has a possibility of increasing dopamine levels in the brain which is the cause of one feeling happy/good when listening to the music that they love. From one of the sources, it is stated that the type of music that you like is the type of music that your gray matter likes as well, so music therapy is more of a person-by-person therapy.

However, from my research, I believe the best way to simplify how music therapy works on the brain is that music allows for the increase of neurogenesis within the hippocampus, which is the center of production and retrieval of memories, while also regulating our emotional responses. When a patient is affected by Alzheimer’s disease, this is the first section of the brain affected. 

One of the interesting side research topics that seemed interesting was the research about seasonal songbirds and how they sing different songs according to the different seasons, while their neurons regenerate and they learn the songs all over again over the months.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC44498/