A bit of classical music never hurt anybody, but could it actually help? (Image: Rex Features)

Classical music is good for the soul and maybe the heart too. Mice with heart transplants survived twice as long if they listened to classical music rather than pop music after their operation.

Masateru Uchiyama of Juntendo University Hospital in Tokyo, Japan, gave mice heart transplants from an unrelated donor which were therefore expected to be rejected. For a week following the operation, the mice continuously listened to Verdi’s opera La Traviata, a selection of Mozart concertos, music by Enya, or a range of single monotones.

Mice exposed to opera fared best – they survived an average of 26 days, with those who listened to Mozart close behind at 20 days. Mice who listened to Enya survived for 11 days and the monotone group only seven days.


The team tested the effects of La Traviata on deaf mice too. They survived for just seven days, reinforcing the likelihood that hearing the music, rather than another factor, such as feeling vibrations from the music, accounted for the difference.

Calming effect

Blood samples from the mice revealed that the classical music appeared to slow organ rejection by calming the immune system. The mice had lower concentrations of interleukin-2 and gamma interferon – both of which promote inflammation – and higher levels of substances that dampen inflammation, such as interleukins 4 and 10 (Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery, in press).

“We don’t know the exact mechanisms but the harmony of Verdi and Mozart may be important,” says Uchiyama.

The team would now like to see if the phenomenon could be used to help improve the success of transplants in people. Research in 2003 found that music therapy combined with relaxation imagery can influence pain and nausea in people following a bone marrow transplant.

John Sloboda, a professor of psychology at the University of Keele, is sceptical about the effects. “I think it dangerous to dub this an ‘opera’ or ‘Mozart’ effect on the basis of exposure to one piece from each genre,” he says. “The effect might be totally specific to that piece, or even the recording, played at a specific volume, so we know nothing about what characteristics of these pieces might have caused the immunosuppressant response.”