Since 2001, the Mariani Foundation for Child Neurology in Milan, Italy has been promoting conferences focused on neuroscience and music. This past month, the sixth conference took place in Boston, Massachusetts. This year, the Keynote Speaker was Dr. Josef Rauschecker of Georgetown University’s Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition. His keynote dealt with the auditory cortex in primates and how music is processed in the brain.

Selected Presentations

Musical function modification through the use of noninvasive Brain Stimulation
Gottfried Schlaug
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA

Effects of a music therapy intervention for individuals with dementia and their family caregivers
Suzanne B. Hanser
Berklee College of Music, Boston, USA

Developmental trajectories for musical rhythm perception
Erin Hannon
University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA

Rhythm, synchronization and early social development
Laura Cirelli
University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada

Rhythm in social communication: Evidence from typically-developing infants and toddlers and implications for children with autism
Miriam D. Lense
Vanderbilt University Medical Center

SIMPHONY: Studying the impact music practice has on neurodevelopment in youth
John A. Iversen
University of California, San Diego Neurosciences and Music conferences attract some of the most prominent scientists, researchers, and thinkers in the world. John Iverson, an assistant researcher at University of California, San Diego’s Institute for Neural Computation and the last presenter listed above, regularly speaks about music and the brain. Here he is presenting at a TEDxSan Diego.