Singing to babies improves their mood

 Singing to your infant can significantly boost the baby's mood, according to a recent Yale study published May 28 in Child Development.

Around the world and across cultures, singing to babies seems to come instinctively to caregivers. Now, new findings support that singing is an easy, safe, and free way to help improve the mental well-being of infants. Because improved mood in infancy is associated with a greater quality of life for both parents and babies, this in turn has benefits for the health of the entire family, the researchers say. The study also helps explain why musical behaviors may have evolved in parents."Singing is something that anyone can do, and most families are already doing," said Eun Cho, postdoctoral researcher at the Yale Child Study Center, and co-first author of the study. "We show that this simple practice can lead to real health benefits for babies."

"We don't always need to be focusing on expensive, complicated interventions when there are others that are just as effective and easy to adopt," added Lidya Yurdum, a PhD student in psychology at the University of Amsterdam, affiliated with the Child Study Center, and co-first author.

Increased singing improves infants' moods

The new study included 110 parents and their babies, most of whom were under the age of four months. The researchers randomly assigned the parents into two groups, encouraging one group to sing to their infants more frequently by teaching the parents new songs, providing karaoke-style instructional videos and infant-friendly songbooks, and sending weekly newsletters offering ideas for incorporating music into daily routines.

For four weeks, these parents received surveys on their smartphones at random times throughout the day. Parents answered questions related to infant mood, fussiness, time spent soothing, caregiver mood, and frequency of musical behavior. For instance, parents were asked to rate how positive or negative their baby's mood was within the last two to three hours before receiving the survey. The 56 parents in the control group also received an identical intervention in the four weeks following the initial experiment.

The researchers found that parents were successfully able to increase the amount of time they spent singing to their babies. "When you ask parents to sing more and provide them with very basic tools to help them in that journey, it's something that comes very naturally to them," said Yurdum.

Not only did the parents sing more frequently, but they also chose to use music especially in one context in particular: calming their infants when they were fussy. "We didn't say to parents, 'We think you should sing to your baby when she's fussy,' but that's what they did," said Samuel Mehr, an adjunct associate professor at the Child Study Center, and director of The Music Lab. Mehr is also the study's principal investigator. "Parents intuitively gravitate toward music as a tool for managing infants' emotions, because they quickly learn how effective singing is at calming a fussy baby."Most surprisingly, the responses to the survey showed that increased singing led to a measurable improvement in infants' moods overall, compared to those in the control group -- in other words, parents who sang more rated their babies' moods as significantly higher. Importantly, improved mood was found in general, not just as an immediate response to music.

While singing did not significantly impact caregivers' moods in this study, Mehr believes that there could be follow-on effects on health in young families. "Every parent knows that the mood of an infant affects everyone around that infant," said Mehr. "If improvements to infant mood persist over time, they may well generalize to other health outcomes."

Follow-up study to further explore singing's benefits

The team believes that the benefits of singing may be even stronger than the current study shows. "Even before our intervention, these participating families were particularly musical," Yurdum explained. "Despite that, and despite only four weeks of the intervention, we saw benefits. That suggests that the strength of singing to your babies would likely be even stronger in a family that does not already rely on music as a way of soothing their infants."

The Child Study Center researchers are currently enrolling parents and babies under four months old in a follow-up study, "Together We Grow," which will investigate the impact of infant-directed singing over an eight-month period.

Although the researchers did not see an improvement in caregiver mood within four weeks, they are intrigued to see if singing can help alleviate stress or conditions such as postpartum depression in the long term. They are also interested in exploring whether singing might have benefits beyond mood in infants, such as improved sleep.

Source: ScienceDaily

Doctors used music instead of medication—what they saw in dementia patients was remarkable

 A new treatment that uses music therapy on dementia wards could improve care and support for some of the NHS's most vulnerable patients.

Researchers at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust have piloted a music therapy approach called MELODIC, across two NHS dementia wards.More alternatives to psychotropic medication are needed to support dementia patients who experience severe distress.

The pilot study involved a music therapist being embedded on hospital wards, the delivery of clinical music sessions and the implementation of musical care plans for each patient, and results from the research have now been published in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry.

Music therapy, delivered by trained therapists, can include singing, playing or listening to music. The therapist can also identify specific ways that music can be used by families and carers in an individual's daily care routine.

During the study, patient data suggested a slight improvement in quality-of-life scores among patients and a reduction in the severity of distress symptoms and disruptiveness, although agitation scores increased slightly.

There were no increases in routinely reported incidents, and no adverse events related to music therapy interventions were reported. This is relevant for future research on mental health dementia wards where limited studies have been conducted to date.

Lead author Naomi Thompson, a researcher at the Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), said: "People with dementia on inpatient mental health wards are often experiencing very high levels of distress, and staff are under immense pressure to manage this in ways that are safe and compassionate.

"Our study yielded promising results and importantly showed that the MELODIC tool can be used effectively in these highly complex settings, giving an alternative option to current ways of managing severe distress, such as psychotropic medication."

The approach was shaped by interviews with 49 healthcare professionals, patients, and their families about their experiences managing distress on dementia wards and using music in everyday care and life to help develop the intervention, with findings published in the Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Importantly, the intervention -- which has been co-designed by clinicians, researchers, and people with lived experience - cost just £2,025 per month for the therapist and £400 initial outlay for equipment, suggesting a low-cost, scalable model.Dr Ben Underwood, Research and Development Director and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at CPFT said: "Some people with dementia can get so confused and distressed that we need to admit them to hospital to keep them safe. It can be difficult to manage distress in a ward environment and hard for patients, families and staff."I am very excited that it may now be possible for NHS staff to improve their experience on dementia wards using the power of music, and we look forward to working with ARU to develop this further."The current study was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and is published in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry.

Source: ScienceDaily

Dancing brainwaves: How sound reshapes your brain networks in real time

 What happens inside your brain when you hear a steady rhythm or musical tone? According to a new study from Aarhus University and the University of Oxford, your brain doesn't just hear it -- it reorganizes itself in real time.

Every beep, tone and new sound you hear travels from the ear to registering in your brain. But what actually happens in your brain when you listen to a continuous stream of sounds? A new study from Aarhus University and University of Oxford published in Advanced Science reveals that the brain doesn't simply register sound: it dynamically reshapes its organization in real time, orchestrating a complex interplay of brainwaves in multiple networks.The research, led by Dr. Mattia Rosso and Associate Professor Leonardo Bonetti at the Center for Music in the Brain, Aarhus University, in collaboration with the University of Oxford, introduces a novel neuroimaging method called FREQ-NESS -- Frequency-resolved Network Estimation via Source Separation. Using advanced algorithms, this method disentangles overlapping brain networks based on their dominant frequency. Once a network is identified by its unique frequency, the method can then trace how it propagates in space across the brain.

"We're used to thinking of brainwaves like fixed stations -- alpha, beta, gamma -- and of brain anatomy as a set of distinct regions," says Dr. Rosso. "But what we see with FREQ-NESS is much richer. It is long known that brain activity is organized through activity in different frequencies, tuned both internally and to the environment. Starting from this fundamental principle, we've designed a method that finds how each frequency is expressed across the brain."

Opens the door to precise brain mapping

The development of FREQ-NESS represents a major advance in how scientists can investigate the brain's large-scale dynamics. Unlike traditional methods that rely on predefined frequency bands or regions of interest, the data-driven approach maps the whole brain's internal organization with high spectral and spatial precision. And that opens new possibilities for basic neuroscience, brain-computer interfaces, and clinical diagnostics.

This study adds to a growing body of research exploring how the brain's rhythmic structure shapes everything from music cognition to general perception and attention, and altered states of consciousness.

"The brain doesn't just react: it reconfigures. And now we can see it," says Professor Leonardo Bonetti, co-author and neuroscientist at Center for Music in the Brain, Aarhus University, and at the Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing, University of Oxford. "This could change how we study brain responses to music and beyond, including consciousness, mind-wandering, and broader interactions with the external world."

Source: ScienceDaily

Scientists reveal how breathwork unlocks psychedelic bliss in the brain

 Breathwork while listening to music may induce a blissful state in practitioners, accompanied by changes in blood flow to emotion-processing brain regions, according to a study published August 27, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS One by Amy Amla Kartar from the Colasanti Lab in the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, U.K., and colleagues. These changes occur even while the body's stress response may be activated and are associated with reporting reduced negative emotions.

The popularity of breathwork as a therapeutic tool for psychological distress is rapidly expanding. Breathwork practices that increase ventilatory rate or depth, accompanied by music, can lead to altered states of consciousness (ASCs) similar to those evoked by psychedelic substances. High ventilation breathwork (HVB) might offer a non-pharmacological alternative, with fewer legal and ethical restrictions to large-scale adoption in clinical treatment. However, the neurobiological mechanisms and subjective experience underlying ASCs induced by HVB have not been studied extensively.To fill this knowledge gap, Kartar and colleagues characterized ASCs induced by HVB in experienced practitioners by analyzing self-reported data from 15 individuals who participated online, 8 individuals who participated in the lab, and 19 individuals who underwent magnetic resonance imaging. Their task consisted of a 20- to 30-minute session of cyclic breathing without pausing while listening to music, followed by a series of questionnaires within 30 minutes of finishing the breathwork session.

The results showed that the intensity of ASCs evoked by HVB was proportional to cardiovascular sympathetic activation, as indicated by a decrease in heart rate variability, indicating a potential stress response. In addition, HVB-evoked ASCs were associated with a profound decrease in blood flow to the left operculum and posterior insula - brain regions implicated in representing the internal state of the body, including breathing. Also, despite HVB causing large and global reductions in blood flow to the brain, there was a progressive increase in blood flow during the session to the right amygdala and anterior hippocampus, which are brain regions involved in the processing of emotional memories. These blood flow changes correlated with psychedelic experiences, demonstrating that these alterations may underlie the positive effects of this breathwork.

During all experimental sessions, participants reported a reduction in fear and negative emotions, with no adverse reactions. Across participants and experimental settings, HVB reliably enhanced ASCs dominated by Oceanic Boundlessness (OBN), which is a term coined by Freud in 1920 that describes a set of related feelings including spiritual experience, insightfulness, blissful state, positively experienced depersonalization, and the experience of unity. OBN is considered as a defining aspect of ASCs evoked by psychedelic substances, such as psilocybin.

According to the authors, their study was novel and exploratory and requires replication by future research including larger sample sizes and a control group to separate the effects of music on the brain. Despite these limitations, the findings provide a better understanding of HVB and direct research to investigate its therapeutic applications.

Source: ScienceDaily

Daily music listening linked to big drop in dementia risk

 Listening to music after the age of 70 appears to be associated with a meaningful reduction in dementia risk. A research team from Monash University analyzed data from more than 10,800 older adults and found that people in this age group who regularly listened to music experienced a 39 percent lower likelihood of developing dementia.

The project, led by Monash honours student Emma Jaffa and Professor Joanne Ryan, examined how both listening to music and playing instruments relate to cognitive health in adults over 70. Their analysis showed that individuals who consistently listened to music, compared with those who never, rarely, or only sometimes did so, had a 39 percent reduced risk of dementia. Playing an instrument was also tied to benefits, with a 35 percent reduction in dementia risk.Findings Drawn From Large-Scale Aging Studies

Researchers based their work on information from the ASPirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly (ASPREE) study and the ASPREE Longitudinal Study of Older Persons (ALSOP) sub‐study. The results were published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

People who reported always listening to music demonstrated the strongest cognitive advantages. This group showed a 39 percent lower incidence of dementia and a 17 percent lower incidence of cognitive impairment, along with higher overall cognitive scores and better episodic memory (used when recalling everyday events). Those who both listened to and played music on a regular basis had a 33 percent reduced risk of dementia and a 22 percent reduced risk of cognitive impairment.

Music as an Accessible Activity for Brain Health

Ms Jaffa noted that the outcomes of the research "suggests music activities may be an accessible strategy for maintaining cognitive health in older adults, though causation cannot be established," she said.

The findings come at a time when population aging is creating new public health challenges. Longer life expectancy has led to rising rates of age‐related conditions, including cognitive decline and dementia, which places increasing pressure on families and healthcare systems.

Lifestyle Choices May Shape Cognitive Aging

Senior author Professor Ryan emphasized the urgency of exploring options to help delay or prevent dementia. "With no cure currently available for dementia, the importance of identifying strategies to help prevent or delay onset of the disease is critical," she said.

She added that "Evidence suggests that brain aging is not just based on age and genetics but can be influenced by one's own environmental and lifestyle choices. Our study suggests that lifestyle-based interventions, such as listening and/or playing music can promote cognitive health."

Source: ScienceDaily

Researchers find ADHD strengths linked to better mental health

Adults with ADHD who are aware of their personal strengths and actively use them tend to report better overall well-being, a higher quality of life, and fewer mental health challenges, according to a new international study.

The research was released during October's ADHD Awareness Month, which this year highlights "the many faces of ADHD." Scientists from the University of Bath, King's College London, and Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands collaborated on the first large-scale effort to measure psychological strengths associated with ADHD.Large Study Compares Strengths in Adults With and Without ADHD

Published in Psychological Medicine, the study examined 200 adults diagnosed with ADHD and 200 adults without ADHD. Participants were asked how strongly they identified with 25 positive traits, including creativity, humor, spontaneity and hyperfocus. Researchers defined these traits as "things [they] do well or best."

ADHD is commonly discussed in terms of difficulties such as impulsivity, forgetfulness, and trouble sustaining attention. This study points to a different perspective by emphasizing the importance of recognizing and making use of strengths.

Luca Hargitai, lead researcher from the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath, said: "These exciting findings give us an indication of which positive qualities may be tied to ADHD and thus can be considered ADHD-related strengths. It can be really empowering to recognise that, while ADHD is associated with various difficulties, it does have several positive aspects."

Key Strengths More Commonly Endorsed by Adults With ADHD

Compared with participants without ADHD, those with ADHD were more likely to strongly identify with 10 specific strengths. These included:

• Hyperfocus (deep concentration on tasks of interest)
• Humor
• Creativity
• Spontaneity
• Intuitiveness

Despite the well-documented challenges adults with ADHD often face in work, relationships, and mental health, the study found they were just as likely as neurotypical participants to recognize and use their strengths in everyday life.

Source: ScienceDaily

Researchers tested AI against 100,000 humans on creativity

 Can generative artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT genuinely create original ideas? A new study led by Professor Karim Jerbi from the Department of Psychology at the Université de Montréal, with participation from renowned AI researcher Yoshua Bengio, takes on that question at an unprecedented scale. The research is the largest direct comparison ever conducted between human creativity and the creativity of large language models.

The study, published in Scientific Reports (Nature Portfolio), points to a significant shift. Generative AI systems have now reached a level where they can outperform the average human on certain creativity measures. At the same time, the most creative people still show a clear and consistent advantage over even the strongest AI models.AI Reaches Average Human Creativity Levels

Researchers evaluated several leading large language models, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and others, and compared their performance with results from more than 100,000 human participants. The findings highlight a clear turning point. Some AI systems, including GPT-4, exceeded average human scores on tasks designed to measure divergent linguistic creativity.

"Our study shows that some AI systems based on large language models can now outperform average human creativity on well-defined tasks," explains Professor Karim Jerbi. "This result may be surprising -- even unsettling -- but our study also highlights an equally important observation: even the best AI systems still fall short of the levels reached by the most creative humans."

Further analysis by the study's co-first authors, postdoctoral researcher Antoine Bellemare-Pépin (Université de Montréal) and PhD candidate François Lespinasse (Université Concordia), revealed a striking pattern. While some AI models now outperform the average person, peak creativity remains firmly human.

In fact, when researchers examined the most creative half of participants, their average scores surpassed those of every AI model tested. The gap grew even larger among the top 10 percent of the most creative individuals.

"We developed a rigorous framework that allows us to compare human and AI creativity using the same tools, based on data from more than 100,000 participants, in collaboration with Jay Olson from the University of Toronto," says Professor Karim Jerbi, who is also an associate professor at Mila.

How Scientists Measure Creativity in Humans and AI

To evaluate creativity fairly across humans and machines, the research team used multiple methods. The primary tool was the Divergent Association Task (DAT), a widely used psychological test that measures divergent creativity, or the ability to generate diverse and original ideas from a single prompt.

Source: ScienceDaily