New Research on Music and the Brain

Music has long helped to bring communities and cultures together. A recent study by neuroscientists from Bar-Ilan University and the University of Chicago collected data to demonstrate just that. Its findings, shared in a paper titled “The Social Neuroscience of Music: Understanding the Social Brain through Human Song,” outline the five areas of the brain that contribute to social connection through music: empathy circuits, oxytocin secretions, reward and motivation, language structures, and dopamine. The authors assert that a better understanding of this connection may improve social bonding, particularly in areas of conflict.

And in other neurological-creative news, check out this article about the brain-boosting benefits of improvisation in Psychology Today.