Exploring the impact of music interventions on brain function, behavior, and health: Volume IV

Music is increasingly studied as a precision tool for brain and health research. Advances in neuroimaging, wearable sensing, and computational modeling now let researchers track how music shapes neural dynamics, behavior, and physiology in real-world settings as well as in the lab. This work spans cognitive neuroscience, health psychology, and clinical medicine. It covers music’s effects on brain activity at rest and during tasks, and its role in emotion, cognition, language, and social interaction. Many findings still come from small, short-term studies. The field needs larger, better-controlled, replicable work that links neural mechanisms to behavioral and health outcomes.This Volume IV aims to clarify how specific musical interventions affect neural activity, behavior, and physiological health across the lifespan. We want to move beyond showing that music works. We want to learn for whom it works, through which mechanisms, and at what dose. Findings of this kind can support personalized, evidence-based, and scalable interventions. They can also inform digital and AI-enabled music tools, including adaptive and generative music systems, closed-loop neurofeedback, virtual and extended reality environments, and music-based digital therapeutics.We encourage rigorous designs, preregistration, open data and code, transparent reporting of intervention protocols, and diverse, representative samples. Our goal is to build a mechanistic, translational evidence base that connects music neuroscience to clinical practice and digital health.We welcome Original Research, Clinical Trials, Systematic Reviews, Meta-Analyses, Methods, and Perspectives on themes including:• Musical training and listening programs, and their effects on brain structure, plasticity, and healthy aging.• Tailoring musical elements (tempo, rhythm, timbre, familiarity, preference) for therapeutic goals, including personalized and algorithmically adapted music.• Music therapy outcomes in diverse clinical groups, such as neurodevelopmental conditions, depression and anxiety, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, chronic pain, and neonatal and palliative care.• Links between music and physiological markers, including heart rate variability, stress hormones, sleep, and immune and inflammatory measures.• Multimodal and naturalistic neuroimaging (EEG, MEG, fMRI, fNIRS), and the use of machine learning to decode music-evoked brain states and predict treatment response.• Neural synchrony and social bonding in group music-making, including hyperscanning studies.• Effects of music on emotion, cognition, and language across ages, cultures, and socioeconomic groups, with attention to equity and accessibility.• Remote, wearable, and telehealth delivery of music interventions, and studies of real-world implementation. Topic editors: Ying Liu, Jiancheng Hou, Guangyuan Liu, Jie Chen Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/87223/exploring-the-impact-of-music-interventions-on-brain-function-behavior-and-health-volume-iv