Cognitive Neuromusicology & Neurologic Music Therapy is a new and modern discipline and evidence-based therapeutic approach blending Music and Medicine to treat and address neurologic issues and dysfunctions impacting motor skills, speech, language and cognitive functions. Neurologic Music Therapy is an amazing alternative to pharmacologic methods in treating these neurological and mental health problems. Listening to music and particularly playing a musical instrument is considered as the most efficient and effective way for simultaneously triggering and stimulating both hemispheres of the brain. People who listen to music, and /or play a musical instrument have a thicker corpus callosum than those who don’t listen to music regularly. In 1995, at Harvard Medical School, neurologist Dr. Gottfried Schlauf and his colleagues Dr. Marie Forgeard, & Dr. Ellen Winner studied 31 children in a span of three years – out of the 31 only 6 of them played their musical instruments regularly. In these 6 young musicians, their corpus callosum grew 25% thicker relative to the overall size of the brains of the other children who did not practice. With that being said, people who regularly listen to music or play a musical instrument possess a higher three dimensional cognitive and intellectual authority than those who are not exposed to music. Playing a musical instrument demands fine motor skills further engaging the motor cortex, located in the brain’s frontal lobe, and because music evokes strong emotions, it intensely activates the nucleus accumbens, the amygdala and hippocampus – thus giving the brain an equivalent of a full body workout.

Dr. Roa is a Clinical Cognitive Neuromusicologist and boardcertified Neurologic Music Therapy Fellow based in Salt Lake City, Utah where he holds his private practice and Neurologic Music Therapy Clinic. He is an expert lecturer on the Cognitive Neuroscience of Music and the Brain who has travelled extensively to promote this new discipline at hospitals and institutions in Europe, the United States, and Asia - including lectures at Weber State University; University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Cebu Institute of Medicine; Chong Hua Hospital Mandaue Medical Arts, Cebu Normal University College of Medicine, St. Anthony Mother & Child Hospital, University of the Philippines College of Medicine, Universidad Popular Autonoma del Estado de Puebla College of Medicine and Faculty of Nursing and Liceo de Cagayan University College of Medicine. In October of this year, Dr. Roa will speak at the 6th International Conference on Mental Health at RUDN University in Moscow, Russia. Dr. Roa is a fierce advocate for the use of creative medicine and non-pharmacologic methods in addressing and treating neurological and mental health issues