Music and the Brain: From Neural Mechanisms to Clinical Applications

The field of music neuroscience explores how music engages complex brain networks, making it a uniquely powerful tool for investigating neural processes that underpin perception, action, emotion, prediction, and reward. Recent advances in neuroscience demonstrate that music activates widespread brain systems, from the auditory cortex to motor and reward networks, enabling the study of core principles such as neural entrainment, oscillatory timing, and predictive processing. Large-scale, multimodal studies have begun to illuminate how music can serve as both a model for basic brain function and as a pathway for understanding neurological and psychiatric disorders. Yet, critical gaps persist in linking circuit-level findings to clinically meaningful outcomes, elucidating moderators across development, and leveraging music as a precision tool for diagnosis and intervention.


This Research Topic aims to bridge mechanism and clinical translation by assembling state-of-the-art research that leverages music to probe brain systems, reveal biomarkers, and develop personalized interventions. The objective is to address key questions about how music-related neural dynamics contribute to neurodevelopment, brain–environment interactions, genetic modulation of function, and the expression of neuropsychiatric symptoms. We particularly seek work that connects neural or circuit-level measures with translatable clinical traits and explores individual differences across the lifespan that may inform tailored therapies.


The scope of this Research Topic encompasses studies that use music as a probe, biomarker, or intervention within cognitive, systems, and clinical neuroscience. Submissions may incorporate multimodal neuroimaging, electrophysiology (EEG/MEG/fMRI/fNIRS), computational modelling, connectomics, or causal manipulations such as TMS/tACS, and should emphasize real-world or digitally enabled approaches where possible. To gather further insights into these areas, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:


• Rhythm and timing networks as transdiagnostic mechanisms in neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders

• Music-evoked reward, prediction error, and affect regulation in conditions such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, and addiction

• Developmental and lifespan trajectories of auditory–motor coupling and plasticity

• Gene–environment contributions to musical perception, production, and neural phenotypes

• Music-based biomarker development for cognitive, language, and social function, and treatment stratification

• Hearing and auditory processing disorders with well-characterized cognitive and neural endpoints

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Neurodevelopmental disorders, psychiatric disorders, music-evoked reward, genetic modulation, music, rhythm, biomarker development, hearing, auditory processing, cognition

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.