The report concluded that reggaeton, specifically its instrumental part, promotes healthier brain activity than any other musical genre.
In the last twenty years, reggaeton music has become one of the most popular musical genres worldwide. In 2021 Bad Bunny was crowned the most reproduced artist in Spotify, while other artists like Karol G, Raw Alejandro y J Balvin topped the music charts across all streaming platforms.
There is no doubt that the genre has left the world “dancing”, but now a recent study published in the academic journal Neuroscience, by scientists from Canary Islands and Finland, states that hearing gender evokes more brain activity than other forms of music, including classical.
The study, called The musical style not only modulates the auditory cortex, but also the areas related to motor skillsexplains the data collected by examining the brain activity of 28 different people while they tried music within the genres of classical, folk, electronic and reggaeton.
During the study, the researchers found that when participants listened to reggaeton, there was a significantly higher brain activity than with other genders. For the study, the scientists made sure that the participants had no musical training and used a functional MRI to analyze areas of interest in the brain such as the basal ganglia (pleasure and emotions), those with auditory activity (sound processing) and motor skills (movement).
The Dr. Jesús Martín-Fernández, the study’s principal investigator and neurological resident at the Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria University Hospital in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, joined his passions for neurosurgery and musical composition for this study, which went viral shortly after its publication.
“What we have seen is that all motor areas, the pyramidal and basal ganglia, reggaeton activates it much more than any other genre,” he told RTVE.es. “One of the interesting pieces of the study is that we have eliminated the linguistic content, it is just instrumental music.”
Martín-Fernández also told the Washington Post that the brain areas seen in the study may be helpful in finding a cure for the Parkinson’s disease. In addition, the emotions that reggaeton causes in the body connect us with the rhythms of our ancestors, which is key to helping those who suffer from this disease.
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