CIMTR Public Research Webinar: Interacting brains of clients and therapists: EEG case reports on neural emotional markers during receptive and active music therapy

‘Interacting brains of clients and therapists: EEG case reports on neural emotional markers during receptive and active music therapy’. With speakers: Dr Clemens Maidhof and Dr Jorg Fachner Until recently, research into the neural mechanisms associated with the music therapeutic process was largely lacking. In this talk, we will present our dual-EEG case studies that focused on specific important moments during receptive (GIM) and active music therapy. By exploring neural indices of emotional processing in both interactants, results of the GIM session suggest shared emotional processing during personally meaningful imagery. Initial observations of improvisational music therapy sessions point to shared emotional processing related to pulse-related features of the improvisations. We conclude that combining dual-EEG with detailed audiovisual and qualitative data seems to be a promising approach for neuroscientific research into the action mechanisms of Music Therapy.

Dr Clemens Maidhof is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research at Anglia Ruskin University. He has a background in musicology and psychology, and focuses currently on the neural dynamics during music therapy by combining music therapy research with social cognitive and affective neuroscience.

Dr. Jörg Fachner (Doctor of Medical Science and MSc in Education) is Professor of Music, Health and the Brain and Co-Director of the Cambridge Institute of Music Therapy Research at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge,UK. Working over 25 years in music therapy research, doing psychology and medical research projects in Germany and Finland, he is keen to use EEG to investigate social interaction in music.