Heavy Metal Music Toxicity?

By Flickr user Wok - http://www.flickr.com/photos/wok/12916031/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=887535

It would appear that lovers of “heavy metal” music (HMML) have certain “alterations” of brain function, compared to fans of classical music (CML), and we can assume these alterations are not good because the authors of this study conclude that “The results may partly explain the disorders of behavioral and emotional cognition in HMML compared with CML and are consistent with our predictions. These findings may help provide a basic understanding of the potential neural mechanism of HMML.”

Assuming these findings can be replicated and are of relevance, the question is whether they are cause or effect. Does listening to “heavy metal” cause the alterations, or is it that people already having the alterations (for whatever reason) are prone to be HMML?  Or both – some people are predisposed to be HMML because of their neural wiring, but then listening to the music creates positive feedback to reinforce the differences?  Abstract:

The aim of this study was to investigate the spontaneous neural activity and functional connectivity (FC) in heavy metal music lovers (HMML) compared with classical music lovers (CML) during resting state. Forty HMML and 31 CML underwent resting-state functional MRI scans. Fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF) and seed-based resting-state FC were computed to explore regional activity and functional integration. A voxel-based two-sample t-test was used to test the differences between the two groups. Compared with CML, HMML showed functional alterations: higher fALFF in the right precentral gyrus, the bilateral paracentral lobule, and the left middle occipital gyrus, lower fALFF in the left medial superior frontal gyrus, an altered FC in the default-mode network, lower connectivity between the right precentral gyrus and the left cerebellum-6 and the right cerebellum-3, and an altered FC between the left paracentral lobule and the sensorimotor network, lower in the right paracentral lobule and the right inferior temporal gyrus FC. The results may partly explain the disorders of behavioral and emotional cognition in HMML compared with CML and are consistent with our predictions. These findings may help provide a basic understanding of the potential neural mechanism of HMML.