The Power of Musical Entrainment

What is Entrainment?

Frank Lipman, MD, an integrative and functional medicine expert, commented on entrainment on his Web site and stated, “Your body contains an autonomic mechanism that synchs you up with strong, external rhythms, pulses or beats, a phenomenon known as entrainment. Actually we entrain to the rhythms around us all the time.” ¹ He added, “In fact, our internal rhythms will speed up or slow down to match a stronger external rhythm,” sharing the example of “when a musician has the audience spellbound, he or she has entrained them into the rhythm.” ¹ The downside of entrainment, Lipman advised, is that, for example, we can entrain to unhealthy rhythms in life that can lead to burnout.

An article on music therapy and rhythmic entrainment stated, “Technically, entrainment in physics refers to the frequency locking of two oscillating bodies, i.e., bodies that can move in stable periodic or rhythmic cycles. They have different frequencies or movement periods when moving independently, but when interacting they assume a common period.” ²

While there are many ways to entrain in this world—through dance, conversation, music, and social interactions, and so on—this article focuses on interesting research on musical entrainment and potential health benefits.

Research

Studies have shown that people who have experienced cerebellar strokes with resultant gait abnormalities may be entrained through auditory metronome cues to improve gait performance and lower their risk of falls. One case study looked at the effects of this procedure with an elderly woman who had suffered a cerebellar stroke and had gait and posture disturbances and a history of falls. ³ Results showed that compared with her baseline and by using an auditory metronome to cue her gait, her step time, stance time, and double support time variability were improved. The authors commented, “Research has shown that auditory rhythm and music can produce an effect on the motor system. Musical rhythms and auditory cues can facilitate muscle activation through the audio-motor pathways at the reticulospinal level, and studies have demonstrated the ability to synchronize lower limb movements to auditory cues.” ³ They added, “The posterior superior temporal gyrus and premotor cortex have been shown to be involved in the entrainment of movement to auditory cues. It has been suggested that although cerebellar damage may impair the conscious detection of rhythmic variation, it does not appear to effect motor entrainment to rhythmic stimuli. Therefore, the use of rhythmic stimuli for cueing movement may be a useful tool in the rehabilitation of movement deficits following a cerebellar stroke.” ³

Thaut et al. commented, “It is now well-established that the auditory system has richly distributed fiber connections to motor centers from the spinal cord upward on brain stem, subcortical, and cortical levels.” ² They added, “Of greatest importance in the context of motor rehabilitation was the finding that the injured brain can indeed access rhythmic entrainment mechanisms. Early studies of gait training in hemiparetic stroke rehabilitation, Parkinson's disease, traumatic brain injury, and cerebral palsy confirmed behaviorally the existence of rhythmic entrainment processes in clinical populations.” ²

In a study by Sanger et al., 12 pairs of guitarists played duets in two voices of a short sequence from Sonata in D Major by Christian Gottlieb Scheidler. ⁴ One of the guitarists in each pair was assigned the lead role and responsible for bringing the other in and determining the playing tempo. The follower on the other hand was asked to focus themselves exclusively toward the leader. The Rondo was played 60 times. Participants were monitored by electroencephalogram, and results showed that synchronous oscillatory brain activity occurred during this interactive and coordinated musical performance.

The impact of musical entrainment may in fact be far reaching. A review on musical training and cognition reported that compared with children without musical training, children with musical training have better verbal memory, second-language pronunciation accuracy, reading ability, and executive functions. ⁵ The authors stated that “learning to play an instrument as a child may even predict academic performance and IQ in young adulthood. The degree of observed structural and functional adaptation in the brain correlates with intensity and duration of practice.” ⁵ The authors added that “rhythmic entrainment may represent a mechanism supporting learning and development of executive functions” and said that “musical training uniquely engenders near and far transfer effects, preparing a foundation for a range of skills, and thus fostering cognitive development.” ⁵

One randomized trial looked at the effects of musical entrainment on premature infants in a neonatal intensive care unit setting. ⁶ In this study, 272 premature infants with a variety of conditions, including respiratory distress and infection, received three live music interventions per week for two weeks. The results of the study showed improvements in heart rate, including lower heart rates during lullabies, rhythm intervention, and entrained breath sounds. Entrained breath sounds also led to improved sleep patterns. The authors concluded, “The informed, intentional therapeutic use of live sound and parent-preferred lullabies applied by a certified music therapist can influence cardiac and respiratory function. Entrained with a premature infant's observed vital signs, sound and lullaby may improve feeding behaviors and sucking patterns and may increase prolonged periods of quiet–alert states. Parent-preferred lullabies, sung live, can enhance bonding, thus decreasing the stress parents' associate with premature infant care.” ⁶

Conclusion

In both clinical settings and in everyday living, entrainment is a powerful phenomenon that directs our minds and bodies to a prevailing rhythm. As the authors of one article reported, “Entrainment can facilitate complex and interdependent coordination that can be seen in human activities including sport, play, verbal communication and emotional expression, and in the epitome of rhythmic entrainment: music and dance. These kinds of activities are powerful, perhaps because they indicate a mutual perceptual and social experience originating from the sharing in time and space of embodied rhythm.” ⁷ As research on the effectiveness of musical entrainment increases, so too will the use of this directed therapy increase in clinical settings in order to improve a variety of health conditions and optimize health outcomes.   ■