The science

ResearchOtherPartially randomized patient-preference trial, four parallel groupsn = 400

Four things to listen to during an MRI, and what 400 patients reported afterwards

Abuejheisheh and colleagues · Journal of Health Psychology

In 400 patients who largely chose their own listening condition, Quran recitation was followed by the lowest anxiety scores and music by the second lowest. The design cannot separate the sound from…

ResearchOtherThree-arm randomized pilot trialn = 113

AI-written guided imagery added to music: anxiety did not budge, negative mood did

Li and colleagues · PLoS ONE

A 113-student randomized pilot found no group difference in state anxiety or positive affect. Only negative affect differed, and the authors say the design cannot show what caused it.

ResearchOtherSystematic review of randomized and controlled non-randomized studies, narrative synthesis24 studies

Aromatherapy plus music for distress: the combination rarely beat either one alone

Zhai and colleagues · Frontiers in Psychology

A systematic review of 24 controlled studies found that pairing scent with music usually beat doing nothing, but usually did not beat scent or music on its own.

ResearchBinaural beatsWithin-participant comparison of visual flicker alone against flicker plus matched binaural beats, with EEG outcomesn = 40

Binaural beats added to a flickering light: entrainment at 8 and 20 Hz, not at 40 Hz

Ávila · Neuroscience

Adding binaural beats to 8 and 20 Hz visual flicker strengthened the EEG response in 40 adults. At 40 Hz the gamma rise did not survive a stricter analysis.

ResearchOtherTwo-arm randomized controlled trial against usual care, six weeksn = 91

Five Element "Jue tone" music added to usual care for post-stroke depression: better scores, no blinding

Jin and colleagues · The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine

Six weeks of Jue tone music therapy added to usual care in 91 patients improved depression, sleep and function scores. Nobody was blinded to the treatment.

ResearchOtherSystematic review and meta-analysis of randomized, quasi-randomized, crossover and controlled studiesn = 1,880

Music therapy for autistic children: helps social communication, no measurable effect on daily function or quality of life

Lu, Feng and Wang · Frontiers in Psychiatry

Thirty-three controlled studies, 1,880 children: a moderate pooled benefit for social communication, a small one for language, nothing for daily function.

ResearchOtherOpen-label parallel-group randomized controlled trial against standard caren = 186

Music through headphones during a blood draw: about one point less pain out of ten

Prakash and colleagues · International Journal of Scientific Reports

An open-label trial in 186 adults having arterial blood gas sampling: music cut reported pain by 1.04 points out of ten, matching meta-analytic estimates.

ResearchAlphaTwo-arm randomized sham-controlled trial, pretest and posttest, participants and outcome assessor blindedn = 30

10 Hz binaural beats in opioid rehabilitation: a small sham-controlled trial with very large reported effects

Soleimanifar and Mansouriyeh · Research Square (preprint)

Thirty men in opioid rehabilitation were randomised to ten sessions of 10 Hz binaural beats or a matched sham. Good design for its size, implausible effects.

ResearchOtherSystematic review of 19 clinical studies, with meta-analysis where trials could be pooled19 studies

Singing bowls in clinical studies: a systematic review

Cai and colleagues · Integrative Medicine Research

Singing bowls turn up in sound baths, yoga studios and hospital pilot programmes, but the clinical evidence has never been gathered in one place. Cai and colleagues searched nine databases…

ResearchGammaOpen-label extension study with external matched controlsn = 5

Two years of daily 40 Hz light and sound in five people with mild Alzheimer’s

Chan and colleagues · Alzheimer’s & Dementia

The 40 Hz story began in mice, where flickering light and clicking sound at gamma frequency appeared to reduce Alzheimer’s pathology. Chan and colleagues report what happened when five people with…

ResearchGammaRandomized 2×2×2×2 factorial between subjects, with a within-subject crossover against control audion = 80

Which binaural beat settings entrain the brain, and do they help attention?

Melnichuk, Cooper and Hawk · Scientific Reports

Studies of binaural beats and attention contradict each other, and Melnichuk, Cooper and Hawk suspected the reason is that everyone uses different settings. So they varied the settings on purpose…

ResearchThetaThree-arm randomized experiment, single 30-minute sessionn = 308

Monaural beats inside music reduce anxiety; beats alone do not

Venkatesan and colleagues · Frontiers in Psychology

Monaural beats are the less-studied cousin of binaural beats: the pulsing is built into the sound itself rather than created inside the head, so it works from speakers as well as headphones…

ResearchBinaural beatsSystematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trialsn = 1,047

Binaural beats for anxiety and pain around surgery: a meta-analysis of 15 trials

Xiong and colleagues · Complementary Therapies in Medicine

Anxiety before and after surgery is common, and it makes blood pressure swing and pain feel worse. Xiong and colleagues pooled every randomized trial they could find, through December 2024, in which…

Strong evidence

ResearchOtherQuasi-experimental within-subject study, three frequency conditions, pre/post measuresn = 65

Theta, alpha and beta binaural beats all lowered blood pressure, and equally

Yang and colleagues · BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies

If different beat frequencies do different things to the brain, they should do different things to the body. Yang and colleagues tested that in 65 students, each of whom listened to twenty minutes…

ResearchGammaWithin-subject EEG comparison of three sound conditionsn = 28

2024

Isochronic-style tones shift EEG power more than gamma binaural beats

Dos Anjos and colleagues · Neuroscience

Dos Anjos and colleagues recorded EEG from 28 people during four minutes each of gamma-frequency binaural beats, a newer isochronic-style pulsed tone, and plain white noise. The question was whether…

ResearchOtherNarrative review of methods and evidence

2024

Is “entrainment” what the brain is actually doing? A methods review

Duecker and colleagues · Journal of Neuroscience

This review is not about any product or therapy. It is about the word that every product and therapy on this topic leans on. When a rhythmic sound or light is presented, brain recordings show…

ResearchBinaural beatsSystematic review of randomized controlled trials17 trials

2021

Binaural beats and isochronic tones: a systematic literature review

Aparecido-Kanzler, Cidral-Filho and Prediger · Revista Mexicana de Neurociencia

Aparecido-Kanzler and colleagues set out to collect every controlled trial of audio brainwave entrainment they could find. Searching PubMed, MEDLINE, LILACS and ScienceDirect for terms such as…

ResearchBinaural beatsWithin-subject EEG study, four stimulus conditionsn = 13

2014

EEG activity during binaural beats at four frequencies

Gao and colleagues · International Journal of Psychophysiology

Thirteen adults heard binaural beats at four frequencies. EEG changed, but the authors found no clear entrainment effect and tested no attention task.

ResearchOtherSystematic review of 20 experimental and quasi-experimental studies20 studies

2008

A systematic review of the psychological effects of brainwave entrainment

Huang and Charyton · Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine

Huang and Charyton's 2008 review of 20 studies reports psychological benefits from rhythmic sound and light, but does not score study quality or pool results.

ResearchBinaural beatsSingle-unit electrophysiology in cats, with systematic stimulus manipulation

1979

Single neurons that follow a binaural beat, recorded in the cat brainstem in 1979

Kuwada, Yin and Wickesberg · Science

Most cells recorded in the cat inferior colliculus fired in step with the beat frequency. This is the physiological basis of binaural beats, and it is about sound localisation, not brain states.

ResearchBinaural beatsWithin-subject comparison of binaural and monaural evoked responsesn = 5

1975

When the brainstem tracks a tone, the two ears add up and do not interact

Gerken and colleagues · Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology

In five listeners, the brainstem response to tones in both ears was simply the sum of the two one-ear responses. An early piece of evidence about where binaural interaction does and does not happen.

ResearchBinaural beatsPopular-science review article with the author's own unquantified demonstrations and clinical observations

1973

The article that started it all: Oster 1973 on what binaural beats are for

Gerald Oster · Scientific American

The founding article of the binaural beats field is a Scientific American essay about hearing research and neurological diagnosis. It makes no claim that beats alter mood, focus or consciousness.