Art and music therapy seem to help with brain disorders. Scientists want to know why

After a traumatic brain injury, veteran Michael Schneider was helped by art and music therapy. Schneider says that he can prevent a seizure by playing music.

Madeline Gray for NPR

Michael Schneider reaches for the ukulele he keeps next to his computer when his anxiety flares up.

Schneider, who suffered two serious brain injuries while in the Marines, says he can play a song.

Schneider learned the technique through Creative Forces, an arts therapy initiative sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, in partnership with the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

It is an example of how arts therapies are being used to treat brain conditions.

Music, poetry, and visual arts treatments have not undergone rigorous scientific testing. Artists and brain scientists have launched an initiative to change that.

The initiative is the result of a partnership between the Aspen Institute and the Mind Lab Center for Applied Neurosciences. Anna Deavere Smith, Ren Fleming, and Dr. Eric Nestler are some of the leaders. The Icahn School of Medicine is in Sinai.

The goal of the initiative is to measure how arts therapies change the brains of people like Schneider.

He had a traumatic brain injury when he was involved in a helicopter incident. That was in 2005.

He was training for high-altitude flights when he experienced sudden decompression. It was like a stroke.

He says he lost all feeling on his right side.

Schneider, a retired Marine Corps Master Sergeant, has received challenge coins over the years and they are currently in his garage studio.

Madeline Gray for NPR

Schneider recovered from both incidents. They took a toll on his brain. He began to have serious problems.

He says he was having 20 to 40 seizures a day at one point.

He developed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Schneider was treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He was not getting better.

He says he lost hope that he would make it through the next couple of years. My brain was shutting down.

Schneider was referred to Vaudreuil by military doctors. Vaudreuil discovered something about the big Marine from Michigan.

She says that he had a history of doing theater arts.

Schneider played a few notes on the piano.

He recalls that she told him that he could sing.

They sang the opera hit Con Te Partir.

That led to a lot of musical exploration, including the ukulele. It helped Schneider start talking about his struggles and gave him a way to reduce his seizures.

Schneider's home studio was built by the Semper Fi Fund.

Madeline Gray for NPR

The ingrained piece of how I trained was taken away by learning music.

Personal experiences like Schneider's are getting some scientific confirmation, according to Vaudreuil.

She says that we know that when we receive music, we are stimulating multiple parts of the brain. Studies show that this strengthens brain circuits that help repair damage.

The brain changes in response to other art therapies, like dance, poetry, painting, sculpture, and even leatherwork. There has been little scientific study to back that up.

For the past five years, Schneider has been doing leatherwork. He teaches the craft to other veterans. Schneider uses tools to stamp leather and plans where stitching will go on a final product.

Madeline Gray for NPR

"We need to provide the robust, empirical data demonstrating that there is efficacy," says Nestler, a co-chair of the NeuroArts initiative advisory board.

It is more difficult to do that with music or art than it is with a new medication.

It is possible to objectively measure brain changes produced by arts therapies.

There are lots of anecdotal reports of patients with Alzheimer's who will begin singing and become more interactive when they hear a familiar song.

In addition to reporting the behavioral changes, one could identify a greater level of activity in circuits in the brain related to memory and emotions.

The effect of singing on Fleming's brain has been seen.

During her visit to the National Institutes of Health in 2017, she agreed to perform a procedure inside an magnetic resonance machine.

She says that they had her singing and imagining singing and speaking. It was imagining singing.

A singer looks at a brain Scan with a neuroscientist at the National Institutes of Health.

National Institutes of Health via AP

Since the early days of her career, the existence of the NeuroArts Blueprint represents a big and important shift in thinking for Fleming.

I had terrible stage fright. She says she had pain from performance pressure. At the time, doctors tended to dismiss the symptoms of mind and body.

Fleming uses her performance trips to meet with brain scientists and arts therapists.

She says she saw a music therapist working with a man who had a stroke and couldn't speak.

Neuroscience and artists need to create a new field of expertise called neuro arts to understand why that happened.

The neuroscientist agrees with him.

He says that they have realized how our two worlds can come together.

Fleming performs with Francis Collins at NPR.

Shelby Knowles/NPR

Even with good scientific evidence, arts therapies are likely to face obstacles.

He says no one asks about paying $100,000 or more for surgery. He says that coverage of music therapy for a brain condition is going to be a challenge.