Masateru Uchiyama of Juntendo University Hospital in Tokyo, Japan, saw that the rats that had undergone a heart transplant to live 2 times longer when listening to classical music after surgery. Uchiyama perform a heart transplant from a donor to mice that did not match the expectations of his heart will be rejected by the recipient mice.
During the week after surgery, some rats continued to played classical music entitled La Traviata Verdi masterpiece, classical music of Mozart, songs written by Enya, and a monotonous song that played over and over.
Mice that opera music is played to survive for an average of 26 days. Mice that listening to Mozart last up to 20 days. Listening to Enya mice survived for 11 days and mice who heard the song only lasted 7 days monotony.
Researchers also tested the effects of La Traviata was deaf mice, but to no avail because the mice survived for 7 days only. These findings raise the possibility that some music could affect heart function.
Blood samples from rats show that classical music can slow soothing organ rejection by the immune system. Mice that listening to classical music has a concentration of interleukin-2 and interferon gamma is lower. Both substances are known to increase inflammation. Blood of mice that hearing as well as more classical music contains interleukins 4 and 10 which can reduce inflammation.
"We do not know exactly how the mechanism, but listening to Verdi and Mozart may have an important influence," Uchiyama said as quoted by Newscientist.com, Friday (03/23/2012).
Uchiyama wanted to see whether this phenomenon can be used to help improve the success of heart transplantation in humans. Study in 2003 found that music therapy combined with relaxation can reduce pain and nausea in patients after undergoing a bone marrow transplant. unfortunately, not all experts responded to these findings seriously.
"I think it is dangerous to claim the effects of this Mozart opera or song. Effect might be due to a song or recording is played with a certain volume, so we do not know what the characteristics of the pieces of this song that affect the immune system," said John Sloboda, professor of psychology at the University of Keele.