Efficacy and Neural Basis of Music-based Neurological Rehabilitation for Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the leading causes of serious, life-long disability among adolescents and young adults. Especially the cognitive, emotional, and motors deficits caused by TBI often impair everyday psychosocial functioning, quality of life (QoL) and ability to work dramatically, thereby bringing about a lot of suffering and burden to the patients and their families as well as substantial social and economic costs to the society. Early rehabilitation is highly important for restoring lost skills and functioning, but often very difficult given the severity and extent of the TBI symptoms and the high strain that the available rehabilitation methods put on the patients. Music therapy is a highly motivating, versatile, and applicable form of TBI rehabilitation, but currently there is little scientific evidence for its efficacy or mechanisms in the TBI population. The purpose of the present project is to determine the long-term effect of Music-based Neurological Rehabilitation (MBNR) on cognitive, motor, emotional, and social recovery after TBI in adolescents and young adults, and to study the neural mechanisms that underlie behavioural recovery and the efficacy of music.

The study is a single-blind, cross-over randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving 60 adolescents and young adults with a subacute moderate / severe TBI. During an 18-month follow-up, the patients receive MBNR (30 session, 3 x week, 1 hour sessions) and/or Standard Care (SC). The MBNR intervention utilizes structured cognitive-motor training with drums and creative musical expression (music playing, song writing) with piano that are geared towards engaging and training attention, executive functions, working memory, and upper-extremity functions and for enhancing emotional self-expression, adjustment, and mood after TBI. The SC consists of other types of conventional rehabilitation (e.g., physical therapy, neuropsychological rehabilitation) and medical care for TBI provided in private or public health care. Half of the patients receive the MBNR intervention during the first 10-week period and half during the second 10-week period (in addition, all patients receive SC during the whole follow-up period).

Outcome measures comprise neuropsychological tests (measuring executive functions, attention, reasoning, and working memory and learning), neurological scales (measuring neurological symptoms, functional outcome, adjustment, and participation), motor tests (measuring motor dexterity, coordination, and upper limb functioning), and structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI/fMRI, measuring gray and white matter structure and integrity and auditory-motor neural processing) performed at the start of the study (baseline), after the first 10-week period (3-month stage) and after the second 10-week period (6-month stage). At these time points as well as 12 months later (18-month stage), the patients and their caregivers are also given questionnaires measuring executive functions, depression symptoms, quality of life, and caregiver well-being and burden.