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.
Over three thousand viewers attended online with several hundred in-person attendees. Dr. Francis Collins, former NIH director, highlighted work from our lab as an example of music and medicine work employing big datasets. The director of the National Institute for Deafness and Communication Disorders (NIDCD) highlighted Dr. Nayak's early career grant to study musicality and hearing, and the director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) highlighted Dr. Lense's grant to study social engagement in autism spectrum disorder.
Dr. Lense spoke about "Social Development in Early Childhood" during the session on "Music Education and Health", while Dr. Gordon spoke about "Genomic Influences on Sensorimotor Synchronization and New Links With Health" during the session on "Future Research Directions".
Watch Dr. Lense's presentation here (timecode: 5:11:25), watch Dr. Gordon's presentation here (timecode: 1:11:15) and read the full program book here,
