“Lo-fi hip hop beats to study to” is a Youtube channel and also a spotify playlist that is known for being the best study music. Between two lo-fi hip hop beats streams, they combined for 800 million views and had continuously streamed for 21,000 hours. I would estimate that over half of those views are from college students cramming for an exam, possibly a physiology exam. The reason I bring this up is because this type of sound/music incorporates binaural auditory beats and there’s a reason students love to have this on in the background as they’re studying. A systematic review looking at the efficacy of binaural beats on memory and attention was conducted and the results concluded that binaural beats improved memory and attention in humans (Basu and Banerjee, 2022). I’m not saying that listening to binaural beats will contribute to getting an A on a physiology exam, but it was shown to improve memory for recognition and recall tasks. Binaural beats can also contribute to decreasing pain perception and reducing anxiety (Garcia-Argibay et al., 2019). Whether this is decreasing the pain from taking a hard exam or by limiting the anxiety before the test, it seems binaural beats can be helpful in many facets of the studying process for students. Binaural beats work by providing two different frequencies to each ear simultaneously, producing a third beat within the inferior colliculus, located in the midbrain (Beauchene et al., 2016). The binaural beats increase the amount of synchronization within the auditory cortex causing an increase in presynaptic neuron firing increase, leading to a greater likelihood of reaching the postsynaptic neurons threshold potential. The increase in synchronization increases neural plasticity and working memory across the cortex and a binaural beat of 40 Hz was shown to increase the activity in frontal and parietal lobes (Beauchene et al., 2016). Research is still being conducted on binaural beats to determine the difference in frequencies and their effect on connectivity in the brain. If you’re looking for a new study playlist, give binaural beats a listen.
Basu, S., & Banerjee, B. (2022). Potential of binaural beats intervention for improving memory and attention: insights from meta-analysis and systematic review. Psychological research, 10.1007/s00426-022-01706-7. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-022-01706-7
Garcia-Argibay, M., Santed, M. A., & Reales, J. M. (2019). Efficacy of binaural auditory beats in cognition, anxiety, and pain perception: a meta-analysis. Psychological research, 83(2), 357–372. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1066-8
Beauchene, C., Abaid, N., Moran, R., Diana, R. A., & Leonessa, A. (2016). The Effect of Binaural Beats on Visuospatial Working Memory and Cortical Connectivity. PloS one, 11(11), e0166630. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166630
Really cool post! I love the idea of looking at things more in the realm of pop culture through a physiological lens. Something that really interested me was the evidence that binaural beats are able to reduce pain perception and anxiety. When I was looking into it further, I found a study where their results showed that binaural beats were effective in reducing preoperative anxiety in dental patients (Menziletoglu, 2021). This goes to show the binaural beats can have applications not just in individual study, but also in professional fields as well!
ReplyDeleteMenziletoglu, D., Guler, A. Y., Cayır, T., & Isik, B. K. (2021). Binaural beats or 432 Hz music? which method is more effective for reducing preoperative dental anxiety?. Medicina Oral, Patología Oral y Cirugía Bucal, 26(1), e97.