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Illustration of two silhouetted profiles facing opposite directions, one with music notes in "brain" and one with electrical current
Music Therapy

Could Music Therapy Ease the World’s Dementia Crisis?

A new wave of research aims to move beyond anecdotal evidence. If it proves significantly beneficial and easily “dispensable,” the savings in terms of well-being and of monetary costs would be immense.
Music Therapy

The Sound Explorer

Northwestern neuroscientist Nina Kraus discusses the effect that music has on brain development and education, her path to research, and sharing science via her lab's extraordinary website.
Closeup of drum circle with people drumming
Music Therapy

NIH ‘Sound Health’ Grants Raise the Volume on Music, Singing Research

We sense that music changes our moods and thinking, but how and why? US national health institutes are sponsoring a wave of studies to investigate.

cartoon brain with notes spinning out
Music Therapy

Different Types of Music May Aid Stroke Recovery

Building on work showing that listening to music helps speed peoples’ recovery from stroke, researchers find that the peppy song you love triggers different brain areas than unfamiliar music.
Music Therapy

Sound Health: Music and the Mind

Following a science workshop held in March, the National Institutes of Health and the Kennedy Center for the Arts hosted renowned musicians, scientists, and music therapists for a day of talk and music-making.
Music Therapy

How Music Helps to Heal the Injured Brain

Therapeutic Use Crescendos Thanks to Advances in Brain Science

The use of music in therapy for the brain has evolved rapidly as brain-imaging techniques have revealed the brain's plasticity—its ability to change—and have identified networks that music activates. Research has shown that neurologic music therapy can help patients who have difficulty with language, cognition, or motor control, and the authors suggest that these techniques should become part of rehabilitative care.
Music Therapy

How Music Can Reach the Silenced Brain

Music is proving to be an exceedingly complex stimulus that may bypass damaged higher brain centers to stir underlying sources of motor control, memory, and emotion. When the music begins, we may one day hear the silenced sing and see the stilled begin to dance.

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