What was at the time an attempt to answer a question that no one had asked has become a discovery that has surprised the scientific community; and now new lines of study are being proposed to continue providing results. The Sensogenoma project, in which scientists from the Santiago Clinical Hospital and IDIS participate, had already managed to demonstrate that genes present in the blood related to neurodegenerative diseases respond to musical stimuli, a revelation that could be key in the search for indicators. on the presence and evolution of these conditions in patients. The research, still in its growth phase, has just concluded that this same response occurs, in greater quantity and more intensely, in the case of saliva. And he sets his sights on the following concerts, in which he will collect new samples: heart rate, electrodermal activity – bristling hairs – and even tears, but without requiring tears from the audience and in a non-invasive way.
Three years ago the genomics research project began, which brings together two worlds that, a priori, do not seem related, even if their contributions demonstrate the opposite. Music is “the stimulus of stimuli,” Antonio Salas, professor at USC and researcher at IDIS, summarized on Thursday, and Sensogenoma has undertaken to verify its scope at the molecular level, in genes, seeking to find useful data to treat degenerative diseases that affect the brain. And, Salas explains, the genetic stimulation it produces in the blood is multiplied in the case of saliva. It is something logical and known, due to its proximity to the brain, and it is already used to search for biomarkers such as those of Parkinson’s disease, but the results in this case “exceed all expectations” of its hypotheses.
In saliva, “the signal [genética] “It is more intense than in the blood and with more activated genes, related to processes altered by certain diseases,” explained the researcher. But what is also curious is that these genes “are activated in a compensatory way” to their discomfort. Their reaction to music “goes against the pathological signal” that causes a disease, added his colleague from IDIS, Federico Martinón, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases of the CHUS, “it tends to correct the expression defects” that cause the disease in question. “Molecularly, it seems that music tends to repair the altered state” that a gene can present, Martinón said, for the moment, as a “hypothesis”, due to the lack of experiments and conclusive evidence in this sense.
Now the tears
Now, Sensogenoma aims to verify whether genes present in other tissues can provide different or more specific information, as happened in the case of saliva. To collect these samples, the study will follow the same system as before: through live classical music concerts with the Galicia Symphony Orchestra as the protagonist – and, this year, also with the collaboration of the Santiago Music Band -, in which samples are taken from the audience before, during – during the break – and after the end of the session. But now, it will incorporate two new measures. First, through a wireless device that the participants will hold in their hands and that will record their heart rate and the electrical activity of their skin. Another, using a strip usually used in medical examinations, which is placed on the lower eyelid and which absorbs a tear to study it; Of course, they specified from IDIS, without causing any inconvenience to the donor.
For these tests, they will analyze samples from patients with dementia, Alzheimer’s and brain damage, but the audience is being expanded with a call for 200 volunteers who, with no other condition than being adults, can register online to participate, after signing a consent to information; and 800 tickets are on sale for the general public, not donors, at a price of 5 euros.
In the future, Sensogenoma will be complemented by the Euterpe project, in which centres from Galicia and Portugal are collaborating, which will last three years and will study the benefits that repeated exposure to different musical models, singing, interpretation and musical creation can have.
