title: Music induces different cardiac autonomic arousal effects in young and older persons.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Autonomic arousal-responses to emotional stimuli change with age. Age-dependent autonomic responses to music-onset are undetermined.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To determine whether cardiovascular-autonomic responses to "relaxing" or "aggressive" music differ between young and older healthy listeners.
  
  
  METHODS
  In ten young (22.8±1.7 years) and 10 older volunteers (61.7±7.7 years), we monitored respiration (RESP), RR-intervals (RRI), and systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BPsys, BPdia) during silence and 180second presentations of two "relaxing" and two "aggressive" classical-music excerpts. Between both groups, we compared RESP, RRI, BPs, spectral-powers of mainly sympathetic low-frequency (LF: 0.04-0.15Hz) and parasympathetic high-frequency (HF: 0.15-0.5Hz) RRI-oscillations, RRI-LF/HF-ratios, RRI-total-powers (TP-RRI), and BP-LF-powers during 30s of silence, 30s of music-onset, and the remaining 150s of music presentation (analysis-of-variance and post-hoc analysis; significance: p<0.05).
  
  
  RESULTS
  During silence, both groups had similar RRI, LF/HF-ratios and LF-BPs; RESP, LF-RRI, HF-RRI, and TP-RRI were lower, but BPs were higher in older than younger participants. During music-onset, "relaxing" music decreased RRI in older and increased BPsys in younger participants, while "aggressive" music decreased RRI and increased BPsys, LF-RRI, LF/HF-ratios, and TP-RRI in older, but increased BPsys and RESP and decreased HF-RRI and TP-RRI in younger participants. Signals did not differ between groups during the last 150s of music presentation.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  During silence, autonomic modulation was lower - but showed sympathetic predominance - in older than younger persons. Responses to music-onset, particularly "aggressive" music, reflect more of an arousal- than an emotional-response to music valence, with age-specific shifts of sympathetic-parasympathetic balance mediated by parasympathetic withdrawal in younger and by sympathetic activation in older participants.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Schwabachanlage 6, 91054 Erlangen, Germany. Electronic address: max.hilz@uk-erlangen.de.
authors.forename: Max J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Hilz
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Schwabachanlage 6, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Stadler
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Schwabachanlage 6, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gryc
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Schwabachanlage 6, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.
authors.forename: Juliane
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nath
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Schwabachanlage 6, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.
authors.forename: Leila
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Habib-Romstoeck
authors.affiliation: Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, Bayer Pharma AG, Müllerstr. 178, 13353 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Brigitte
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Stemper
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, General Hospital of Bozen, Via Lorenz Boehler 5, 39100 Bozen, Italy.
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Buechner
authors.affiliation: Global Music Healing Institute, 67 Riverside Drive, Suite 8A, New York, NY 10024, USA.
authors.forename: Samuel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Schwabachanlage 6, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Koehn
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009146:Music; D012119:Respiration; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Age; Arousal; Cardiovascular modulation; Music; Parasympathetic withdrawal; Sympathetic activation