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BACKGROUND: The practice of dental surgery requires a few different skills, including mental rotation of an object, precision of movement with good hand-eye coordination, and speed of technical movement. Learning these different skills begins during the preclinical phase of dental student training. Moreover, playing a musical instrument or video game seems to promote the early development of these skills. However, we found that studies specifically addressing this issue in the field of dental education are lacking. OBJECTIVE: The main aims of this study are to evaluate whether the ability to mentally represent a volume in 3D, the precision of gestures with their right and left hand, or the speed of gesture execution is better at baseline or progresses faster for players (video games or music or both). METHODS: A prospective monocentric controlled and longitudinal study will be conducted from September 2023 and will last until April 2025 in the Faculty of Dental Surgery of Nantes. Participants were students before starting their preclinical training. Different tests will be used such as Vandenberg and Kuse's mental rotation test, the modified Precision Manual Dexterity (PMD), and performing a pulpotomy on a permanent tooth. This protocol was approved by the Ethics, Deontology, and Scientific Integrity Committee of Nantes University (institutional review board approval number IORG0011023). RESULTS: A total of 86 second-year dental surgery students were enrolled to participate in the study in September 2023. They will take part in 4 iterations of the study, the last of which will take place in April 2025. CONCLUSIONS: Playing video games or a musical instrument or both could be a potential tool for initiating or facilitating the learning of certain technical skills in dental surgery. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/55738.

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Most existing intelligent editing tools for music and video rely on the cross-modal matching technology of the affective consistency or the similarity of feature representations. However, these methods are not fully applicable to complex audiovisual matching scenarios, resulting in low matching accuracy and suboptimal audience perceptual effects due to ambiguous matching rules and associated factors. To address these limitations, this paper focuses on both the similarity and integration of affective distribution for the artistic audiovisual works of movie and television video and music. Based on the rich emotional perception elements, we propose a hybrid matching model based on feature canonical correlation analysis (CCA) and fine-grained affective similarity. The model refines KCCA fusion features by analyzing both matched and unmatched music-video pairs. Subsequently, the model employs XGBoost to predict relevance and to compute similarity by considering fine-grained affective semantic distance as well as affective factor distance. Ultimately, the matching prediction values are obtained through weight allocation. Experimental results on a self-built dataset demonstrate that the proposed affective matching model balances feature parameters and affective semantic cognitions, yielding relatively high prediction accuracy and better subjective experience of audiovisual association. This paper is crucial for exploring the affective association mechanisms of audiovisual objects from a sensory perspective and improving related intelligent tools, thereby offering a novel technical approach to retrieval and matching in music-video editing.

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Over the last few decades, a growing number of studies have used wearable technologies, such as inertial and pressure sensors, to investigate various domains of music experience, from performance to education. In this paper, we systematically review this body of literature using the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) method. The initial search yielded a total of 359 records. After removing duplicates and screening for content, 23 records were deemed fully eligible for further analysis. Studies were grouped into four categories based on their main objective, namely performance-oriented systems, measuring physiological parameters, gesture recognition, and sensory mapping. The reviewed literature demonstrated the various ways in which wearable systems impact musical contexts, from the design of multi-sensory instruments to systems monitoring key learning parameters. Limitations also emerged, mostly related to the technology's comfort and usability, and directions for future research in wearables and music are outlined.

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Music making across cultures arguably involves a blend of innovation and adherence to established norms. This integration allows listeners to recognise a range of innovative, surprising, and functional elements in music, while also associating them to a certain tradition or style. In this light, musical creativity may be seen to involve the novel recombination of shared elements and rules, which can in itself give rise to new cultural conventions. Put simply, future norms rely on past knowledge and present action; this holds for music as it does for other cultural domains. A key process permeating this temporal transition, with regards to both music making and music listening, is prediction. Recent findings suggest that as we listen to music, our brain is constantly generating predictions based on prior knowledge acquired in a given enculturation context. Those predictions, in turn, can shape our appraisal of the music, in a continual perception-action loop. This dynamic process of predicting and calibrating expectations may enable shared musical realities, that is, sets of norms that are transmitted, with some modification, either vertically between generations of a given musical culture, or horizontally between peers of the same or different cultures. As music transforms through cultural evolution, so do the predictive models in our minds and the expectancy they give rise to, influenced by cultural exposure and individual experience. Thus, creativity and prediction are both fundamental and complementary to the transmission of cultural systems, including music, across generations and societies. For these reasons, prediction, creativity and cultural evolution were the central themes in a symposium we organised in 2022. The symposium aimed to study their interplay from an interdisciplinary perspective, guided by contemporary theories and methodologies. This special issue compiles research discussed during or inspired by that symposium, concluding with potential directions for the field of music cognition in that spirit.

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Introduction: In dementia care, the integration of innovative interventions is essential to enhancing the wellbeing and quality of life of people with dementia. Among these interventions, the Music Mirror intervention has emerged as a promising tool to provide personalized audio-biographical cues aimed at soothing, motivating, and engaging people with dementia. This study examined the effects of a Music Mirror intervention on the (a) wellbeing, emotions, and behavioral and psychological symptoms of 155 individuals with dementia, (b) perceived burden, relationship quality, and gains of their informal/formal caregivers, and (c) momentary closeness, wellbeing and stress of caregivers. Methods: This four-year study employed a quasi-experimental waiting-control group design, utilizing before-after measurements in Swiss hospitals, care homes, and domestic homes. For four 6-week intervention phases, Music Mirrors, i.e., brief written resources of acoustic material, associated with practical activities of daily life, were applied at least twice a week by the caregivers during critical moments such as staff handover. Repeated measures' analysis of variance and other tests were used to analyze the data. Results: Individuals with dementia had a higher wellbeing after the Music Mirror use across different care situations. While the Music Mirrors were played, individuals with dementia showed more positive than negative emotions at each measurement occasion, but emotion scores did not significantly change over time. After the MM use, caregivers felt better, closer to the person with dementia, and less stressed. Caregivers also reported significant gains at the end of the intervention. However, there were no significant changes in the frequency of the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, care-related burden and relationship quality over time, regardless of the treatment condition. Discussion: By incorporating personalized audio-biographical cues into their care routines, the wellbeing of people with dementia was improved as well as it had positive momentary effects on their caregivers. The Music Mirror intervention addresses the preferences and needs of people with dementia and helps build bonds between care-recipients and caregivers. Therefore, Music Mirrors can be seen as a highly adaptive and individualized instrument to improve momentary wellbeing of people with dementia in various care situations during daily life.

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Informal caregivers of older people face demanding responsibilities that can negatively affect their wellbeing, highlighting the relevance of interventions that address their specific needs. This study aimed to assess the effects of a group music therapy program based on different songwriting approaches applied to informal caregivers of older adults with dependency. A sample of 113 caregivers participated, being assigned either to the intervention (n = 60) or the control group (n = 53). The intervention group caregivers received 10 weekly sessions of the songwriting program, while the control group continued with their usual care service. Psychological symptoms and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) were assessed at baseline and follow-up using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory-II, Zarit Burden Interview, and SF-36. Group × Time interactions revealed significant improvements in the intervention group compared to the control one in trait anxiety (p = 0.022), social functioning (p = 0.013), role limitations due to physical problems (p = 0.020), and physical component summary (p = 0.022). These findings provided valuable evidence on this novel intervention, showing positive effects for caregivers' wellbeing. The current research emphasizes the importance of considering music therapy as a potential intervention among caregiver support programs.

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Ultrasound imaging using an active sensing array has been extensively studied in both time domain and frequency domain. Subspace decomposition methods in match field beamforming such as the multiple signal classification (MUSIC) algorithm can achieve subwavelength resolution of distinct point scatterers. However, when the size of the target is on the order of one wavelength or larger, the MUSIC type algorithms suffer from poor performance due to a tangled eigen structure. This paper proposes an adaptive match field beamformer that does not require subspace decomposition to achieve high resolution imaging of extended targets. Specifically, the broadband coherent white noise constraint (C-WNC) algorithm is utilized to achieve high focusing ability of extended targets by exploiting the cross-frequency coherence in an active sensing scheme. The dynamic range bias in the adaptive beamformer benefits the C-WNC algorithm to achieve high contrast regardless of the SNR. Both simulations and experiments show that the C-WNC images retain their resolution cells on the tips of the extended target with sizes ranging from a wavelength to sizes as large as the physical aperture width. A robust imaging scheme is then proposed to obtain high quality images by combining C-WNC images with a statistically stable delay-multiply-and-sum (DMAS) algorithm to create high-contrast and high-resolution images of extended targets in both azimuth and axial range directions.

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BACKGROUND: The primary goal of the intensive care unit is to the anxiety of conscious patients is often ignored in the care unit. AIM: The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of various non-pharmacological therapies for anxiety disorders in adult patients in the intensive care unit, in order to enhance humanistic care in the intensive care unit and to promote the patients' physical and mental recovery together. STUDY DESIGN: We conducted a systematic and comprehensive search of the literature in five databases (including the Cochrane Library, PubMed, EBSCO, Web of Science, and Embase) covering nearly a decade for randomized controlled trials of non-pharmacological therapies to reduce anxiety in adult intensive care unit patients. Two researchers independently assessed the quality of the literature, collected and condensed the data, and used STATA software to perform a network meta-analysis. The ranking probabilities for each intervention were calculated using the Surface under the Cumulative Ranking (SUCRA) method. The study protocol was registered with PROSPERO. RESULTS: This study ultimately included 26 randomized controlled trials involving 2791 adult ICU patients. Non-pharmacological interventions for anxiety in adult ICU patients included music therapy, aromatherapy, ICU diary, virtual reality, massage therapy, monitoring room diary, and health education. when compared to the control group (usual care), aromatherapy + music therapy [MD = -2.65, 95% CI (-4.76, -0.54)] (P = 0.0137) and music therapy [MD = -1.77, 95% CI (-3.40, -0.13)] (P = 0.0338) were superior in reducing anxiety in adult ICU patients. The results of the network meta-analysis showed that aromatherapy combined with music therapy significantly alleviated anxiety in adult ICU patients (SUCRA: 99.8%). CONCLUSIONS: Music therapy combined with aromatherapy has demonstrated superior effectiveness compared to other non-pharmacological interventions for reducing anxiety in awake adults in the ICU. However, the underlying mechanisms of this combined therapy require further exploration. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Future research on the use of music therapy combined with aromatherapy in the care unit may help reduce anxiety in patients while fostering their physical and mental healing; however, individual variances and unique clinical circumstances must be considered.

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Over the past decades, the focus of brain research has expanded from using strictly controlled stimuli towards understanding brain functioning in complex naturalistic contexts. Interest has increased in measuring brain processes in natural interaction, including classrooms, theatres, concerts and museums to understand the brain functions in the real world. Here, we examined how watching a live dance performance with music in a real-world dance performance setting engages the brains of the spectators. Expertise in dance or music has been shown to modify brain functions, including when watching dance or listening to music. Therefore, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG) from an audience of dancers, musicians and novices as they watched the live dance performance and analysed their cortical oscillations. We compared intrabrain oscillations when participants watched the performance (with music) or listened to the music alone without the dance. We found that dancers have stronger fronto-central and parieto-occipital theta phase synchrony (4-8 Hz) than novices when watching dance, likely reflecting the effects of dance experience on motor imagery, multisensory and social interaction processes. Also, compared with novices, dancers had stronger delta phase synchrony (0.5-4 Hz) when listening to music, and musicians had stronger delta phase synchrony when watching dance, suggesting expertise in music and dance enhances sensitivity or attention to temporal regularities in movement and sound.

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BACKGROUND: For over 50 years, music therapy and breathing exercises have been widely utilized as interventions to help individuals cope with fatigue, stress and pain globally. AIM: To analyse the effects of music and breathing exercises on anxiety and pain in patients undergoing coronary angiography. STUDY DESIGN: This is a single-blind, randomized controlled trial. The sample comprised 165 patients: 55 in the control group, 55 in the breathing exercise group and 55 in the music therapy group. Patients in the music group listened to music during angiography, those in the breathing exercise group practised exercises 30 min before the procedure and the control group received standard treatment. Anxiety levels were assessed before and after the procedure, and pain levels were measured post-procedure. The Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) checklist for reporting randomized trials was used to guide reporting. RESULTS: Anxiety scores rose significantly in the control group from 33.9 ± 4.2 pre-angiography to 37.7 ± 4.9 post-angiography. Conversely, the breathing group's anxiety scores decreased from 34.3 ± 3.5 before angiography to 31.7 ± 1.5 after angiography, and the music group exhibited a reduction from 32.3 ± 3.6 to 30.8 ± 1.6. Post-angiography, the control group reported a mean pain score of 64 ± 0.8 mm, while the breathing and music groups had significantly lower scores of 35 ± 0.6 and 29 ± 0.8 mm, respectively. Statistical analysis showed a highly significant difference in pain scores between the intervention and control groups. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides support for the beneficial effects of employing breathing exercises and music in alleviating pain and anxiety during coronary angiography procedures. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Integrating these findings into clinical practice could be significant for improving patients' pain experiences and anxiety, enhancing the tolerance of invasive medical procedures.

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BACKGROUND: As the methodological quality and evidence level of the existing systematic reviews (SRs) on music as an intervention for depression have not been thoroughly evaluated, a systematic evaluation and re-evaluation (SERE) was conducted. METHODS: Multiple databases including PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, SinoMed, Wanfang, and the VIP database were searched for SRs and meta-analyses (MAs) on the effectiveness of music as an intervention for depression. The literature screening, evaluation of methodological quality, and assessment of evidence level were carried out by a team of researchers. The methodological quality was evaluated using the Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews 2 (AMSTAR 2) scale in accordance with the 2020 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, and the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) criteria were utilized to assess the level of evidence. RESULTS: A total of 18 SRs were included in the analysis. The 2020 PRISMA guidelines were utilized to evaluate various aspects such as search terms, funding sources, statistical methods for missing values, subgroup and sensitivity analyses, certainty assessment, excluded literature citations, assessment of publication bias, protocol information, conflicts of interest, and data availability, which were rarely reported. The evaluation of the studies using the AMSTAR 2 scale revealed that one article was rated as high quality, six were rated as low quality, and 11 were rated as very low quality. Based on the GRADE criteria evaluation, the quality of the evidence was found to be inconsistent, with reports primarily consisting of medium-quality evidence. CONCLUSION: The methodological quality of SRs/MAs of music as an intervention in depression is generally poor, and the level of evidence is generally low.

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Open heart surgery requires a proper understanding of the endocardial surface of the heart and vascular structures. While modern four-dimensional (4D) imaging enables excellent dynamic visualization of the blood pool, endocardial surface anatomy has not routinely been assessed. 4D image data were post-processed using commercially available virtual reality (VR) software. Using thresholding, the blood pool was segmented dynamically across the imaging volume. The segmented blood pool was further edited for correction of errors due to artifacts or inhomogeneous signal intensity. Then, a surface shell of an even thickness was added to the edited blood pool. When the cardiac valve leaflets and chordae were visualized, they were segmented separately using a different range of signal intensity for thresholding. Using an interactive cutting plane, the endocardial surface anatomy was reviewed from multiple perspectives by interactively applying a cutting plane, rotating and moving the model. In conclusions, dynamic three-dimensional (3D) endocardial surface imaging is feasible and provides realistic simulated views of the intraoperative scenes at open heart surgery. As VR is based on the use of all fingers of both hands, the efficiency and speed of postprocessing are markedly enhanced. Although it is limited, visualization of the cardiac valve leaflets and chordae is also possible.

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PURPOSE: The study was conducted as a randomized controlled experimental study to investigate the effects of music therapy application on physiological parameters and pain in preterm infants." MATERIALS AND METHODS: Preterm newborns included in the study were divided into 3 groups. The first group is experiment I, in which lullabies sung by the babies' own mothers were recorded and played. The second group is experiment II, where lullabies recorded with a standard female vocal for babies are played. The third group is the Control group in which no intervention is applied to the babies. The heart rate and respiratory rate, oxygen saturation level (SpO2) values and pain scores of the groups were measured and compared at different times. RESULTS: Lullaby exposure did not yield significant differences between groups in terms of physiological parameters and pain scores. However, statistical significance was observed in the post-lullaby heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation level, and pain scores of infants in the experimental group (p < 0.05). Significance was consistent across all measurements taken 15 min after the IV intervention. CONCLUSION: Listening to lullabies has beneficial effects on physiological parameters and pain reduction in preterm infants. Integrating lullaby exposure into the regular supportive care of neonatal intensive care unit infants, conducting further studies with more diverse sample groups, and exploring various types of lullabies and music are recommended. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Lullaby during invasive procedures may reduce pain and improve physiologic symptoms in preterm infants. Our findings support the integration of lullabies into the daily supportive care of preterm infants.

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This study looked at the effect of group music therapy on dementia patients' levels of feelings of depression and anxiety. Quasi-experiment was carried out (N = 121) in which patients were randomly divided into a control (N = 61) and an experimental group (N = 60). Following a six-weeks, twelve-sessions trial involving both passive and active music therapy, it was discovered that the music group therapy intervention decreased the anxiety and depression levels of dementia patients in the experimental group as compared to the control group, which did not receive any music therapy. It was also noted that after three months of follow-up, participants in the experimental group still maintained a low level of anxiety and depression, but the control group's level remained high, therefore, substantiating the effect of music in lowering anxiety and depression among older ones. We urge the nursing descipline, medical professionals, carers, and care homes to include music therapy in the care they provide for patients with dementia.

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The speech-to-song transformation is an illusion in which certain spoken phrases are perceived as more song-like after being repeated several times. The present study addresses whether this perceptual transformation leads to a corresponding change in how accurately participants imitate pitch/time patterns in speech. We used illusion-inducing (illusion stimuli) and non-inducing (control stimuli) spoken phrases as stimuli. In each trial, one stimulus was presented eight times in succession. Participants were asked to reproduce the phrase and rate how music-like the phrase sounded after the first and final (eighth) repetitions. The ratings of illusion stimuli reflected more song-like perception after the final repetition than the first repetition, but the ratings of control stimuli did not change over repetitions. The results from imitative production mirrored the perceptual effects: pitch matching of illusion stimuli improved from the first to the final repetition, but pitch matching of control stimuli did not improve. These findings suggest a consistent pattern of speech-to-song transformation in both perception and production, suggesting that distinctions between music and language may be more malleable than originally thought both in perception and production.

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OBJECTIVE: The primary objective of this study was to explore the feasibility of remotely assessing music perception in paediatric cochlear implant (CI) recipients. Pitch direction discrimination (PDD) and timbre recognition (TR) tests were administered remotely. We aimed to provide insights into the potential benefits and challenges of remote assessments. DESIGN: The study was exploratory in nature. All participants underwent remote assessments for the PDD and TR tests. Eight participants completed both online and face-to-face tests. Supervising parents in remote tests completed the System Usability Scale (SUS). STUDY SAMPLE: A cohort of 27 children with CI, averaging 11.19 years of age, participated in this study. RESULTS: In the online condition, the average PDD score was 3.29 semitones (st), the TR score was 37.86%, and the average duration for PDD and TR testing was 9.98 and 6.18 minutes, respectively. Face-to-face sessions had an average PDD score of 3.00 st, a TR score of 32.81% and durations of 10.20 and 5.42 minutes for PDD and TR tests, respectively. The SUS score averaged 64.04. CONCLUSION: These findings contribute to the growing body of knowledge supporting the integration of remote assessments in audiological practices.

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Contagious diseases were among the most vexing problems in ancient theories of health, which could not easily account for how a corruption of one person's humors could cause a similar corruption in another's. One useful explanatory concept for Renaissance doctors tackling this theoretical gap was the phenomenon of resonance or "sympathetic vibration" - where one stationary string begins to vibrate spontaneously when a similarly tuned string is plucked nearby - as both resonance and contagion involved some mysterious, insensible action at a distance between an agent and a patient. Tracing the writings of Marsilio Ficino, Girolamo Fracastoro, and Girolamo Cardano, this essay explores the relationships between the writers' accounts of sympathetic vibrations and their contagion theories. It argues that different conceptions of the acoustic phenomenon - either as a manifestation of a Neo-Platonic World-Soul that underpinned the universe or else as a physical effect - revealed the writers' cosmological views that, in turn, informed their accounts of the human body and disease.

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In a unique case-study approach in which I served as both the research participant and the experimenter, I wore eye-tracking glasses while teaching a brief music lesson to two university students learning trumpet, then approximately two weeks later, I watched a video of the lesson and tracked my gaze again. To investigate unconscious perceptual processes engaged during music teaching, I compared my attention allocation while teaching to my attention allocation during selfobservation. My gaze behavior while teaching revealed a high level of automaticity regarding lesson sequencing and allocation of attention. Strategic moment-to-moment shifts in attention between the two students occurred entirely below my conscious awareness, yet post hoc analyses revealed precisely timed changes that were related to momentary goals. While watching the video, absent the demands of behavioral interaction and momentary decision-making, I directed more sustained attention to both students than I had while teaching. These results reveal important features of "teacher thinking" that are not directly observable or typically construed as conscious behavior. That this component of teaching practice does not involve volitional control suggests that teachers' descriptions of their thinking may not reveal to novices important elements of pedagogical expertise.

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Maintaining healthy cognitive functioning and delaying cognitive decline in cognitively intact and cognitive impaired adults are major research initiatives for addressing dementia disease burden. Music interventions are promising, non-pharmaceutical treatment options for preserving cognitive function and psychological health in older adults with varying levels of cognitive function. While passive, music interventions have attracted considerable attention in the abnormal cognitive aging literature, active, music interventions such as music creativity are less well-studied. Among 58 older adults with different levels of cognitive function (cognitively healthy to mild cognitive impairment), we examined the feasibility and acceptability of Project CHROMA, a Stage 1 clinical trial developed to assess the effects of a novel, music creativity curriculum on various health outcomes. Music intervention participation (93%), overall study retention (78%), and intervention satisfaction (100%) rates were comparable to other similarly designed clinical trials. Exploratory analyses using mixed-level modeling tested the efficacy of the intervention on cognitive and psychological outcomes. Compared to those in the control condition, participants in the music condition showed some improvements in cognitive functioning and socioemotional well-being. Findings suggest that a 6-week music creativity clinical trial with several multi-modal health assessments can be feasibly implemented within a sample of varying cognitive ability.

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Objectives: This study assessed how exposure to slow (SBM) versus fast beat music (FBM) during high-intensity rowing intervals affects performance, heart rate (HR), lactate levels, relative perceived exertion (RPE), and recovery. Methods: The A/B crossover design involved 21 participants performing 5 × 500 m rowing intervals under two conditions: FBM and SBM. Primary endpoint was the difference in total rowing time. Secondary endpoints included average HR, average RPE as well as rowing interval times, RPE, and HR per interval. For exploratory purpose, HR and lactate drop during the initial 5 min post completion was analyzed. Results: Listening to FBM resulted in significantly shorter total rowing times (p = 0.009, rB = 0.59), especially during the 1st interval. The 1st interval was also significantly faster than intervals 2-5 (p < 0.001), with the greatest performance drop between the 1st and 2nd interval during FBM. Average HR was significantly lower when listening to SBM (p = 0.03, rB = 0.48), while average RPE showed no significant difference (p = 0.47, rB = 0.02). Lactate values after interval 5 were significantly lower in SBM (p = 0.05, rB = 0.41), but no significant difference was found for lactate drop (p = 0.21, rB = 0.21). However, participants exhibited a higher HR drop rate with SBM (p = 0.05, rB = 0.42). Conclusion: FBM improved performance without increasing RPE, while SBM proved superior for recovery. Systematic customization of music based on intended training stimuli holds broad potential for the competitive sports, fitness, and health sector.