The Impact of Music-Induced Emotions on EEG Alpha Power and Aperiodic Exponent Across Age Groups

Many studies have been conducted on the impact of music on periodic brain activity. However, there is a lack of research into how music influences background non-oscillatory brain activity, as measured by the aperiodic exponent. Additionally, music has the power to influence emotions which may cause novel neural activity. In the current study, we analyzed alpha power (8-13 Hz) and aperiodic exponent among different age participants during active music listening in order to discover whether age or contrasting music-induced emotions could evoke different neural activity. We conducted a secondary analysis on data obtained from OpenNeuro utilizing measures of alpha power and aperiodic exponent from electroencephalography (EEG) data. The following libraries in Python were used: Fitting Oscillations & One Over F (FOOOF) and Magnetic and Electric Neuroimaging (MNE). The analysis revealed no correlation between the emotional content of music and our EEG measures. However, there were significant increases in aperiodic exponent between younger and older participants, highlighting a change in brain activity across different age groups. This reveals the possible effects of age as a cause of change in neural activity. Future research on the differences in aperiodic activity among different age adults during other creative tasks could improve our understanding of the effects on brain activity caused by aging.