In the News

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Ludwig van Beethoven, one of the most celebrated musicians in human history, has a rather low genetic predisposition for beat synchronization, according to a Current Biology study co-authored by Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and the Max Planck Institutes for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

The work of the Vanderbilt Music Cognition Lab was featured many times during the "Music as Medicine" workshop, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and jointly organized by NIH, the NEA, the Renée Fleming Foundation, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which took place December 14–15, 2023. The event aimed to highlight accomplishments from the last 6 years in advancing scientific research on music and health, develop a blueprint for the next phase of research, and further build the research community.

Infants all over the world become masters of the language their community speaks within the first 3 years of life, a surprisingly short time given the complexity of the task.

Music and singing are some of the most common forms of social interaction and play during early childhood. Caregivers all over the world sing to their infants to engage or soothe them. Seemingly simple acts, like singing to and engaging in musical games with young children, can profoundly impact children, caregivers, and their relationship with each other.

It’s a special feeling to hold your baby and look at them as they look back at you. You and your baby might do this as you rock in a rocking chair, make silly faces, or sing a nursery rhyme. 

There might be something to the saying, “you’ve got the music in you.” A new genetic study in the journal Nature Human Behavior led by researchers at Vanderbilt University and 23andMe found more than 60 regions of the genome associated with beat synchronization, the ability to move in time with the beat of music.

When we move in time with a musical beat, we are harnessing one of the most exquisite feats of perception and coordination of everyday human existence. In a new study published this week in Nature Human Behaviour, we investigate the genetic architecture of beat synchronization.