Music and brain stimulation combined paradigms

• Combined brain stimulation and music may inform neuromodulation paradigms (Stanford University).^{1 1}

Gardner updates

• Stanford research explores how music can enhance or synergize with brain stimulation in combined neuromodulation paradigms. ¹

Weekly enrichment (2026-07-20)

• Stanford Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute researchers (Jessica Ross and Corey Keller) developed Sensory-Entrained TMS (seTMS), which pairs musical rhythm with transcranial magnetic stimulation to phase-align cortical oscillations without requiring real-time EEG.^{2 3}
• EEG in 27 participants confirmed that the sensorimotor alpha/mu rhythm desynchronizes roughly 200 ms before the musical beat, marking a transient high-excitability window that seTMS deliberately targets.³
• In 19 participants, single M1 TMS pulses delivered 200 ms before the beat produced significantly larger motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) than both standard single-pulse TMS and an auditory control condition.³
• Music increased TMS’s effect on motor output by about 77% when pulses were timed to the pre-beat dip, and delivering pulses 200 ms ahead of the beat outperformed on-beat timing by roughly 37%.²
• The mechanism exploits the sensorimotor mu (alpha) rhythm: cortical excitability peaks when mu desynchronizes, making seTMS a low-cost, low-resource alternative to EEG-triggered brain-state-dependent stimulation.³
• A follow-up study on Sensory-Entrained iTBS (se-iTBS) reported more than double the MEP-amplitude increase versus standard iTBS, with enhanced plasticity in roughly 80–85% of individual participants and effects lasting at least 30 minutes.⁴
• Effects did not depend on participants’ years of musical experience or training, suggesting the approach could generalize across individuals.³
• The team is extending seTMS to prefrontal cortex, aiming to boost therapeutic TMS for depression and other neuropsychiatric disorders.²

Footnotes

1. https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMisgFBVV95cUxPR0VQRnR3eFFaNjJvMVY4MkpZX191VXA1U0tjeHlwYTdDNjhrTjZkb254Unl4dWc3UFZlZ1dmcHE2eXVsVUVyUmhUUGQwcmx4ZVlsTTdNY2YwaVJGQ2ZneTJaa1BmbXhuakxmMUFDcno1R2RDVkw3LWdxZEJBckZzSDVlSVJxUUxURjVwZ2RzWXlUZ1lBV0FHRXA0QkZ3bDlPSFNpZE9lUkZINE9iRU1DbVRB?oc=5 ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/news/groove-brain-music-supercharges-brain-stimulation ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.70267 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.07.23.666433 ↩