Let me get this straight...

By mapping the brain activity of a group of subjects while they listened to music, a researcher at the University of California, Davis, now thinks he has the answer: The region of the brain where memories of our past are supported and retrieved also serves as a hub that links familiar music, memories and emotion.

The discovery may help to explain why music can elicit strong responses from people with Alzheimer’s disease, said the study’s author, Petr Janata, associate professor of psychology at UC Davis’ Center for Mind and Brain. The hub is located in the medial prefrontal cortex region — right behind the forehead — and one of the last areas of the brain to atrophy over the course of the disease.

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“What’s cool about this is that one of the main parts of the brain that’s tracking the music is the same part of the brain that’s responding overall to how autobiographically salient the music is,” Janata said.

Because memory for autobiographically important music seems to be spared in people with Alzheimer’s disease, Janata said, one of his long-term goals is to use this research to help develop music-based therapy for people with the disease.

“Providing patients with MP3 players and customized playlists,” he speculated, “could prove to be a quality-of-life improvement strategy that would be both effective and economical.”

Alzheimer’s disease is one disease that comes with the deterioration of age that I fear the most. I’m terrified that I’ll lose all of these precious memories. Maybe that’s why I’m so obsessive about journaling and blogging… this is me, diligently documenting my life so that old-me won’t forget a thing.