Read on Twitter
Okay. So I want to talk about the final scene in Pixar's Coco; Miguel sings to his dementia-stricken grandmother & through Disney magic, the song causes her to regain her memory & cognitive function.
Here's the thing. There is a clinical psych explanation for this scene. (1/10)
Here's the thing. There is a clinical psych explanation for this scene. (1/10)
First, Coco's experience reminds me of this video. Here, we see a borderline catatonic patient just light up when introduced to music. The patient regains not just memory but also retains higher cognitive function for some time after the music stops (2/10)
One of the first things to go in a dementia patient is the hippocampus, which is responsible for converting short-term memories into long term ones. However, memory can also be encoded by the amygdala, particularly memories associated with strong emotional associations. (3/10)
Basically, patients with dementia can compensate for a deteriorating hippocampus by accessing emotionally coded memories through the use of a pre-frontal amygdala connection. (4/10)
https://www.dcconferences.com.au/wcnr2012/pdf/Music_Perception_CR_Final.pdf
https://www.dcconferences.com.au/wcnr2012/pdf/Music_Perception_CR_Final.pdf
So let's look at Coco. Upon hearing music associated with happy memories of her father, Coco remembers specific things about her father such as her letters from him and how beautiful the music was. She's feeling her memories, that's why they're so vivid. (5/10)
But there's something interesting happening in Miguel too.
The mesolimbic pathway (reward center for your brain) regulates dopamine production. Basically, do the thing that helps you survive, your brain gives you the happy drugs so you're more likely to do it again. (6/10)
The mesolimbic pathway (reward center for your brain) regulates dopamine production. Basically, do the thing that helps you survive, your brain gives you the happy drugs so you're more likely to do it again. (6/10)
But this brain chemistry is completely haywire in an adolescent brain. The MP is hyperactive, but there isn't enough dopamine running through it; so that's why teenagers are constantly bored unless they are doing something intensely stimulating. (7/10) https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/dopamine-and-teenage-logic/282895/
Adolescents also undergoing rapid synaptogenesis & neural pruning; constantly & rapidly rewiring itself based on new exp. It's why learning skills are easier at this stage. It's easier for that same stimuli to produce the same dopamine response (8/10) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621648/
This neuroplasticity why adolescents largely develop their musical preferences at around this age. Music is a reliable source of dopamine & the rapid rewiring causes you to seek out similar music and hardcodes it into your emotional memory. (9/10) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/opinion/sunday/favorite-songs.html
So back to the scene, Miguel is at the perfect age where this intense shared memory is going to shape his musical choices going forward, and it's the same song that Coco had internalized as memories of her father. So scientifically, it only adds to the poetry of the scene (10/10)
