Could Singing Slow Cognitive Decline?

But first, building empathy through music: Artists with Crossing Borders Music, a Chicago-based nonprofit, perform the work of musicians from marginalized communities – Palestinian, Haitian, Rohingya, and many more.  The hope is to foster cross-cultural empathy and understanding through initiatives like free concerts,  showcasing the complex musical traditions of other cultures, while amplifying the stories of immigrants, refugees, and other groups who often get overlooked.

“Often, we find that in the West, refugees and immigrants are defined only by the conflict in their home countries,” Tom Clowes, a classical cellist and the founder of Crossing Borders, told Reasons to Be Cheerful. “But nobody wants to be defined by the worst things that have happened to them, especially when it’s not even something that they’ve done, but something that’s happened to them.”

Singing to remember’s untapped power for those living with dementia

Each week in St. Paul, Minnesota, a group of adults both old and young – some living with dementia, some their caregivers— come together to sing . They’re part of Giving Voice, a growing number of memory choirs founded to fight cognitive decline, build community, nurture creativity, and bring joy to memory-impaired patients and their caregivers. “What we thought was an opportunity for a little music therapy and social time turned out to be one of the most powerful ways to create well-being for an incredibly marginalized group,” Eyleen Braaten, Giving Voice’s executive director, told National Geographic.

Research suggests that the memories we form while listening to music develop in a distinct part of the brain – and could plant deeper roots. A 2015 study found that regions involved in long-term musical memory – known as the caudal anterior cingulate gyrus and the ventral pre-supplementary motor area – stay unaffected long after dementia begins to deteriorate the areas most associated with primary memory, like the temporal lobes. That might be why Grandma Coco could remember her father’s song, and why people with late-stage Alzheimer’s disease often still remember well-known songs. As memory choirs increase in popularity, scientists are researching music’s role in preserving memory and improving brain function. 

Borna Bonakdarpour, a musician and behavioral neurologist, saw music temporarily rouse his grandmother from the tangles of dementia. He is now on a mission to prove its power. Earlier this year, he led a study with Good Memories, a memory choir in Chicago – older singers with and without memory loss reported better wellbeing after participating in the choir’s virtual activities. Other research has outlined the benefits singing can have on executive function, episodic memory and verbal fluency.

Choral singing can help combat the isolation, inactivity, and reduced mental stimulation that contribute to dementia’s progression, Bonakdarpour says. “Rehearsing over weeks and weeks is helpful to the singers intellectually,” he explained, “but the social interactions they have are also very important in creating a shared experience that reduces feelings of isolation.” 

For Mike Gair, a retired landscape architect diagnosed with early-stage dementia, Giving Voice is a reason to get out of the house. He leaves rehearsals “on a high,” alert and energetic, according to his daughter Andrea, who sings in the choir with him. On their drives home, he repeatedly thanks her for getting him involved.

Impossible deportation crusade leaves ICE agents demoralized, burnt out, and miserable

By and large, immigrants to this nation aren’t criminals and there is no reason to detain them. But, tasked with deporting a staggering 1,000,000 immigrants each year, ICE must arrest 3,000 people per day. To meet the impossible quota, they’re being redirected from legitimate criminal cases to baseless civil arrests. “No drug cases, no human trafficking, no child exploitation,” one longtime agent said. “It’s infuriating.” He’s unsure how long he can stay on “arresting gardeners.”

Adam Boyd left his role as an ICE attorney last month, following a crisis of conscience. The work was no longer about protecting the homeland, he said, but “a contest of how many deportations could be reported to Stephen Miller by December.” Immigration court, where people come trustingly (as required) has become a place for ICE to make easy arrests – ICE attorneys’ work to ensure due process is being dismissed by the agency “just so officer teams could grab their clients in the hallway for fast-track deportation to pad the stats,” The Atlantic reported. Some of his frustrated colleagues “are only waiting until their student loans are forgiven, and then they’re leaving,” Boyd said.

ICE officers say they used to worry about making a wrongful arrest, but now the worry is if they are aggressive enough. “What we’re seeing now is what, for many years, we were accused of being, and could always safely say, ‘We don’t do that,’” a former official said. Today’s ICE seizes asylum seekers at court, rips parents from their US-born children, chases laborers across farms and big box parking lots, wrecks personal property, and arrests people who are following legal instructions to attend their ICE check-ins.

“The Trump Administration does not care if you are complying with the law because they do not respect the rule of law,” Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-IL) posted to X last month. “They do not care if you have constitutional rights because they do not respect the Constitution… They only care about the arbitrary deportation quotas set by [Stephen] Miller.”

Some officers are pleased with the new freedom to arrest non-criminals, but for many, “it’s miserable,” as one ICE official put it. The job – deporting more than four times the number of people the agency ever has in one year – is “mission impossible.”

In other news…

Wearable lithium sensors could make managing bipolar disorder much easier: Lithium is a highly effective mood stabilizer for people with bipolar, but can be toxic in high doses – there is a tiny “sweet spot” for therapeutic dosing, so lithium levels in patients’ blood require regular monitoring. At the moment, that’s done via blood draw. A new device might totally change that. Researchers at USC have developed a wearable sensor that noninvasively monitors lithium levels through sweat, offering a safer and more accessible way to manage the condition. “Our goal was to make lithium tracking as easy and comfortable for patients as checking a daily fitness tracker,” first study author Mohammad Shafiqul Islam said in a press release.

The sensor contains organic electrochemical transistors (OETCs) specifically designed for lithium detection. Triggered by ionic signals in liquid, the components can deduce lithium concentrations in wearers’ sweat in a process that is affordable and scalable. Data is accessible to users through a smartphone app, enabling real-time tracking, reducing the need for painful or inconvenient blood draws – regular monitoring would help maintain therapeutic stability and avoid lithium toxicity. Early trials have been promising.

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Rest in peace, Malcolm-Jamal: I never met Malcolm-Jamal Warner, but I did love him. He was a man I could trust, an older cousin, whose kindness, authenticity, sense of humor, and talent made him a personal and family favorite. I’d long listened to his music, but only this year did I start consuming his poetry. His words – thoughtful, brilliant, and vulnerable – challenge me to move alongside my anxieties and fears. If you only know him as Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show, I invite you to experience his Grammy-nominated poetry album, Hiding in Plain View, released in 2022.

“Vulnerability can be a scary thing, even when we’re on the mend,” the title track begins. “But it will never let you rest unless you address the parts of you that can’t be dressed up with a smile and an ‘I’m fine.’ So I’m on this quest to embrace a self-love so radical that I honor every aspect of my being, even the broken I’m working to heal.”