“Turns out, whether it’s rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, hip-hop or classical, your gray matter prefers the same music you do.  It depends on your personal background.  For a while, researchers believed that classical music increased brain activity and made its listeners smarter, a phenomenon called the Mozart effect. Not necessarily true.  In recent studies, they’ve found that people with dementia respond better to the music they grew up listening to.  If you play someone’s favorite music, different parts of the brain light up.  That means memories associated with music are emotional memories, which never fade out — even in Alzheimer’s patients, depending on its severity.”.

University of Central Florida (https://www.ucf.edu/pegasus/your-brain-on-music) –  neuroscientist Kiminobu Sugaya and world-renowned violinist Ayako Yonetani — have been teaching one of the most popular courses in The Burnett Honors College. “Music and the Brain”.