The belief that classical music enhances intelligence is mostly incorrect

Scans of the brains of individuals who play instruments have shown enhanced connectivity between multiple brain regions—visual, auditory, and motor cortices—and the corpus callosum, which connects the two brain hemispheres. These complex connections are strengthened through practice and then used in other activities that involve both logic and creativity. The brains of musicians also appear to give experiences multiple types of memory tags, such as audio, emotional, and conceptual, improving their processing.

Dive into the Classical period, a time that emphasized a less extravagant approach to music and focused on societal issues. Defined by Mozart’s influence, find specifics about his career and why he’s remembered for his compositions and the wit and emotional depth of operas like "The Magic Flute."

You’re familiar with music’s ability to transport you to a past experience, but new research suggests that music can even alter how you remember your past experiences. A team of psychology researchers and music experts recently published a study that demonstrates how music can help shift our emotional recollection of a memory. Read to learn more about the study’s findings and how it could influence therapy practices.

Researchers have conducted multiple studies attempting to answer a certain question: do animals like human music? Across species, they observed different results and no clear pattern. Primates appear to prefer silence, and cockatoos appear to dance to funky beats.

Traditional music history focuses on composers and sees music as an object. Historian Michael Spitzer focuses on music's role in everyday activity and sees it not as an object, but an activity. This brief history illuminates the fundamental role music plays in human culture, and sounds a hopeful not for music in the internet age.

One insight reveals that musical passages with surprising volume changes or unexpected harmonies and beauty are more likely to trigger frisson, perhaps because they upend listeners' expectations.

Music writer Paul Morley weighs in on the debate about the relevance of opera. While acknowledging criticisms that opera is snobbish and outdated, Morley argues the lengthy, emotive, and literary art form presents an important intellectual opposition to today’s world of fast-paced online consumption. Opera endures because it provides hope.

Have you ever put your headphones in, turned on your favorite playlist, and tuned out the rest of the world? That’s the power of music. It can improve your mood, reduce stress, and enhance focus. But what kind of music is best when working or studying? Check out this list for some suggestions.

The brain looks different as a result of hearing loss, with reductions in brain volume overall and in specific areas, and these changes are hypothesized to impact cognition. Exactly why hearing loss alters cognition is an active area of research, but theories include that the elevated cognitive load of straining to hear affects brain power available for thinking and memory and that hearing loss leads to social isolation which boosts dementia risk.

A small 2016 study aimed to investigate the behavioral and neural differences between 10 individuals who experience goose bumps when listening to music and 10 who typically don’t. Scientists reported that individuals experiencing musical chills had greater white matter connectivity in specific auditory, emotional, and social processing areas of the brain.

Alex Chern, an ear doctor who has hearing loss himself, dreams of restoring the ability to experience "all the richness and the beauty of the sound of music" for patients—not just functional hearing. Hearing aids amplify sound waves and aren't designed to work well with music that may have varied pitch and volume. Chern is studying how hearing loss and engaging with music may affect cognitive decline.

An MIT study finds lower brain engagement in students who used ChatGPT, resulting in consistent underperformance in neural, linguistic and behavioral levels. AI users struggled to recall their own essays, while the brain-only group showed the highest neural connectivity and satisfaction.

In the middle of a yoga class, Ellen Fishman noticed that sitting closer to a speaker allowed her to feel the music in her body, enhancing her overall experience. She arranged music for a string ensemble with a yoga session in mind. The group, StringFlo, now performs the work live in yoga classes.

Although jazz was once a popular art form, it has largely been confined to the margins of pop culture, with many of the genre's current bestselling albums from previous decades. Some critics argue that this is because the music betrayed its position as dance music and focused instead on musical proficiency.

Any casual YouTube or Spotify user has likely stumbled upon a playlist called "lo-fi beats to study and relax to" while searching for new music. Those "lo-fi beats" actually represent a growing genre of music called "focus music." Spotify, for instance. saw a 50% increase in listening time for focus playlists in its 2023 Wrapped report. This article explains why productivity tunes are on an upswing right now. Read it here.

Some brains are bigger than others, but what is the relevance, if any, to brain size and intelligence? This Scientific American article explores the question and offers examples. It also visually compares frontal slices of several mammals' brains, showing that humans don't necessarily have the biggest cerebrums on the block.

The science is still unsettled about why music can trigger a chill down your spine, formally known as frisson, but one theory is that anything surprising to the nervous system—including sudden beat drops or unexpected harmonies—stimulates a type of alarm response that gives rise to this feeling.

In this article, renowned neurologist Richard Cytowic seeks to expose multitasking as a fool’s errand. Cytowic explains how the brain, like a computer, switches between tasks rather than handling multiple tasks at once. He shares that attempting to focus on multiple activities at the same time consequentially decreases the brain's ability to ignore distractions, maintain focus, and organize information. Instead, he suggests, try to focus on completing one thing at a time.

When Clever Hans was prompted with math questions, he responded by tapping his hoof to indicate his answers. Even a panel of experts found no indication of trickery in the horse's demonstrations. However, psychology student Oskar Pfungst found that Hans stopped tapping once a subtle cue on his owner's face told him to stop. The cues were so subtle that Wilhelm von Osten didn't even know he was giving them.

High test scores in private schools often reflect affluent, selective student bodies—not superior instruction. Studies show that private school advantages stem largely from socioeconomic factors and admission policies, not institutional quality.

Even if you haven't witnessed an 18th century opera, you've likely heard melodies from one in modern media like “Apocalypse Now” and “Sesame Street.” Today, sports events, movies, and television feature operatic melodies even over a century after they were written.

Quantum computers are often viewed as machines that can solve all problems instantly by trying every solution simultaneously. Instead, they amplify correct answers and cancel out wrong ones, which only works for specific kinds of problems with special structures.

Neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine, along with increased brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels, enhance a wide range of brain functions. New research demonstrates a direct link between movement and numerous cognitive benefits, including memory, learning, and stress resilience.

Research shows that psychedelics may induce something called "critical periods" in the adult brain, which can make our brains more open to learning and changing, like they once were back in early childhood. Psychedelics similarly change how social creatures like octopuses behave, which demonstrates that these animals could help us better understand our own neurobiology.

This podcast discusses research that indicates stress perception may drastically affect how we respond to it. In research exploring if our stress is presented as diminishing our health versus if we're told it enhances our performance, it will lead to differences in how successful participants are at performing tasks—with the enhancers doing better.

Scientists have successfully implanted false memories in mice after studying how the editing process works in the brain. Beyond potentially deleting memories in those with PTSD, upcoming research may allow clinicians to forecast the onset of neurodegenerative diseases.

Animal studies involving microdoses of psilocybin, the psychoactive component in magic mushrooms and ketamine, found it helped to alleviate anxiety and inflammation, an immune response that can cause damage when chronically active. Human studies are ongoing. In at least one double-blind study, where researchers and patients don't know who got a placebo versus the real thing, about half of the participants incorrectly guessed they had been given placebos.

Beautiful spaces filled with light and natural motifs aren't just aesthetic, but likely key to your health. Researchers had study participants view photographs of two distinct buildings, one designed with more natural elements while the other featured more abstract shapes and lines. Using electroencephalograph readings of each participant, they discovered participants had less brain inflammation while viewing the "biophilic," or natural, architecture. Learn more about the interdisciplinary framework of so-called neuroarchitecture here.

Hearing loss does not cause dementia, but it does increase the risk of developing dementia and research suggests that people who wear hearing aids for age-related hearing loss also maintain better brain function than those who don't.

Psychology helps us see how we learn, whether through positive reinforcement or by conditioning a response to a stimulus. Learn about these two key theories in this brief video.

Musicians have four times the risk of developing hearing loss, and their risk of developing tinnitus is increased by more than half.

Research published in 2026 that tracked almost 2,000 older adults for an average of nearly eight years suggests that lifelong exposure to intellectual stimulation, such as learning a language, reading, and writing, can lower dementia risk by as much as 40%.

- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)

The human brain has developed cognitive shortcuts to help us navigate in a world where our visual senses are constantly bombarded of information. But these shortcuts can also be exploited, tricking the brain into telling us something is happening when it really isn't. This short video unpacks the neuroscience behind some of the most common (but perplexing) optical illusions.

In a VICE interview, rapper GZA revealed how speed chess sharpened his mind on tour and shaped his creative strategy. Chess, for him, is more than a game—it’s his framework for life.