Music engages a multitude of brain areas, showcasing a complex interplay between auditory processing, emotion, and memory centers. It elicits emotions through the release of dopamine, our brain's pleasure molecule, explaining the joy we often find in a favorite tune. Moreover, music's power to evoke vivid memories highlights its connection to the hippocampus, our memory storage center. This broad influence of music on our brain mechanisms is also harnessed in therapeutic contexts, such as treating neurological disorders or improving mental health ..read more

Music has been suggested as a complementary alternative to chronic pain medication. A new study examines the experience of a woman with chronic pain who used music for pain management. The study delves into the contextual aspects of music listening, as well as the physiological and cognitive benefits of music listening. The study suggests that music-induced analgesia involves complex cognitive and emotional mechanisms, which may modulate the descending pain modulatory pathway ..read more

Listening to music could reduce symptoms of cybersickness, which can cause dizziness, nausea and headaches when using virtual reality devices. The study discovered that joyful music significantly decreased the overall intensity of cybersickness, while both joyful and calming music substantially decreased nausea-related symptoms. The study, also found that cybersickness caused a temporary reduction in verbal working memory test scores, and a decrease in pupil size, slowed reaction times and reading speed ..read more

A new study shows that musical training can improve audiovisual speech perception in aging adults by preserving and compensating for youthful neural patterns. The research reveals two mechanisms that older musicians use to counteract age-related decline: functional preservation and functional compensation, providing hope for targeted interventions to promote healthy aging ..read more

According to a recent study, background classical music has no effect on learning levels in people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). However, listening to high-arousal music may have a positive impact on individuals who use music as an emotional regulator, suggesting the need for further research ..read more

Analyzing data from the popular music streaming service Spotify, researchers found the music we listen to while studying and the songs we prefer while falling asleep share more similarities than music in general ..read more

Listening to or practicing music had positive implications on cognitive decline in older adults by stimulating the production of gray matter in key brain areas, a new study reveals ..read more

Exposure to music or the sound of the mother singing while in the womb was associated with better neural encoding of speech sounds in infants ..read more

Researchers explore how sounds and music have the power to soothe, energize, and connect us to one another ..read more

Researchers report on how using music therapy can help improve social and emotional formation in children on the autism spectrum ..read more