‘Binaural beats’ debunked: These apps offer cool marketing, but iffy health effects

Optical illusions mess with how we see things. “Binaural beats,” a type of auditory illusion, mess with how we hear things—and may play tricks in other ways, too.

Photo credit: Darekm135 / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Photo credit: Darekm135 / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

An odd thing happens when you listen through headphones to two steady tones at slightly different frequencies, one in each ear. You start to hear a low beat that sounds like it’s coming from inside your head. But this third sound is just a figment of your brain’s auditory system. A phantom pulse.

What’s up with that? Scientists have known for decades that our brainwaves tend to synchronize, or “entrain,” with the rhythms we hear. In theory, slightly mismatched tones may confuse the brain. If one ear picks up a tone at 550 Hertz, while the other hears 558 Hertz, the brain will perceive a third frequency—binaural beats—at the points where the sine waves bump together.

Researchers haven’t fully studied binaural beats, let alone the possible health effects. But that hasn’t stopped an overkill of apps from marketing them as “digital drugs” with the power to relieve migraines, sharpen mental focus and blast away stress.

Even Bayer, maker of Aspirin, promotes binaural beats as “good vibes” for relaxation on its Austrian website.

So far, however, the evidence of any health benefits is thin.

So far, the evidence of any health benefits from binaural beats is thin

The latest study to poke holes in the hype comes from an international team led by scientists at the Montreal-based Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research.

In the study, published this week in eNeuro, healthy adults wore head caps with electrodes for monitoring brainwaves using electroencephalography (EEG).

First, they listened to a series of binaural beat frequencies. Next, the same volunteers listened to frequencies mixed on a computer to create a third beat before the sound reached the ears. In this case, the third beat was part of the audio mix (and not an illusion).

After each session, the listeners rated their levels of mental relaxation, alertness and feelings of absorption in the experience.

The researchers found that binaural beats did entrain the brain—but not as much as the premixed beats. What’s more, neither had any effect on mood. A previous study, published in 2017, reached similar conclusions.

This didn’t surprise me. The mood-boosting effects of music, based on a large body of research, stem from the brain’s pleasure and reward response to our favorite sounds. Binaural beat apps use computer-generated frequencies, many of which sound only vaguely like music.

The Montreal study, to be fair, involved just 16 participants and listening sessions of eight minutes each. Chances are this study won’t put the nail in the coffin for binaural-beat diehards.

Whether binaural beats can cause a “high” remains debatable, but the power of suggestion can be intense

Digital drugs have a cult following online. Teens have posted YouTube videos of themselves “getting high” on audio tracks. Reviewers on iDoser’s website have raved about the trippy experiences they’ve had. Whether binaural beats can cause a “high” remains debatable, but the power of suggestion can be intense.

And some studies have shown possible benefits. A 2018 analysis of 22 studies concluded that binaural beats may help lower anxiety and offer modest pain relief.

Behavioral studies, however, tend to search for specific effects, such as relaxation. This approach can bias the results, noted Joydeep Bhattacharya, a cognitive psychologist who has studied the neuroscience of music. Binaural beats, he said, in an interview with Discover magazine, “raise a lot of flags.”

The few studies that have used brain imaging to understand what’s happening during binaural beats have produced inconclusive results, he pointed out. “That gives you a good indication that the story is more complicated than many of the behavioral studies want to convince you.”

Until more research is done, our best bet might be to see this phenomenon as a quirk of our gray matter—a bit of mischief from the proverbial ghost in the machine.

Disclaimer: Discussions about health topics provided in this blog, or in any linked materials, are not intended and should not be construed as medical advice, nor is the information a substitute for professional medical expertise or treatment. The author accepts no responsibility or liability for any health consequences relating to information published on this blog.

One of the masterminds behind the Italian Renaissance was a mystical musician dubbed the “second Orpheus”

Household names like Leonardo da Vinci get all the credit for sparking the 15th-century explosion of art and science. But there’s more to the story.

One of the masterminds behind the Italian Renaissance was neither a painter, nor a wealthy Medici, but a depressive priest who self-medicated with music.

Without this enigmatic figure, named Marsilio Ficino, we might not have Botticelli’s “Primavera” or “The Birth of Venus.”

Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus,” painted in 1483-1483, explores classical themes championed by Marsilio Ficino. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus,” painted in 1483-1483, explores classical themes championed by Marsilio Ficino. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), shown in a fresco painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the Tornabuoni Chapel, church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence

Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), shown in a fresco painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the Tornabuoni Chapel, church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence

I stumbled across Ficino while doing research for my book.

Born in 1433, Ficino was a frail man with pensive eyes and a humped back. But Florentine intellectuals learned not to judge him by his looks, for he had the mind of a genius and the voice of a demigod. They called him the second Orpheus.

Ficino had a gift for reading Greek, at a time when ancient philosophy was making a comeback. He was the first to translate Plato’s entire works into Latin, making them available to a wide audience through Gutenberg’s new printing press.

Ficino coined the term “Platonic love”—bosom buddies without benefits—and revived core ideas from the ancient world. Before his death in 1499, Ficino became one of the most influential scholars in all of Europe.

It helped to have friends in high places. Ficino had the ear and financial backing of Cosimo de’ Medici, titan of the powerful Medici dynasty. Later, Ficino became chief tutor to Cosimo’s grandson, Lorenzo de’ Medici.

Trained by Ficino to appreciate the arts, Lorenzo supported master painters such as Sandro Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci. He even invited the young Michelangelo to live with his family at the Palazzo Medici.

Scene of Ficino’s entourage celebrating neo-Platonic wisdom around a bust of Plato. Oil on canvas entitled, “The Parental of Plato,” by Antonio Puccinelli (1822-1897). Here, “parental” means “influence.” Photo: https://villegiardinimedicei.it/villa-…

Scene of Ficino’s entourage celebrating neo-Platonic wisdom around a bust of Plato. Oil on canvas entitled, “The Parental of Plato,” by Antonio Puccinelli (1822-1897). Here, “parental” means “influence.” Photo: https://villegiardinimedicei.it/villa-di-careggi/

Scholars have argued that Ficino, more than anyone else, summoned the return to beauty in the Italian Renaissance

Together, they mingled in a circle of poets and intellectuals led by Ficino. Themes from Greek and Roman mythology, championed by Ficino, appeared in the masterpieces of Michelangelo and Botticelli.

Did Ficino have a direct hand in their work? No one knows for sure. But Ficino tended to rhapsodize about Venus, describing her as a transformative force for the human soul. The voluptuous goddess became the central figure in Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus,” as well as “Primavera.”

That’s not all.

Ficino was the New Age guru of his day. A trained physician, vegetarian and ordained priest, he melded Catholicism and Greek philosophy with a dash of pagan ritual.

His mystical teachings drew artists and scientists from miles around to a sprawling estate in the hills outside Florence. In a castle-like villa that still stands at Careggi, Ficino headed a centre of learning modelled after Plato’s ancient Academy.

Set in a garden of orange and olive trees, this Medici villa doubled as a healing retreat, specializing in Ficino’s esoteric music therapy. (Today, we’d call it “woo-woo.”)

Villa Medici at Careggi, Florence. Site of the neo-Platonic Academy headed by Marsilio Ficino, who died here in 1499. Photo credit: I, Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7430861

Villa Medici at Careggi, Florence. Site of the neo-Platonic Academy headed by Marsilio Ficino, who died here in 1499. Photo credit: I, Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7430861

An enchanting male voice beckoned visitors to an inner chamber perfumed with frankincense.

There, seated near a bust of Plato, Ficino would strum a lyre (a U-shaped harp) while singing the Orphic Hymns—sacred texts uncovered in Constantinople (Istanbul).

Modern historians have dated these texts to around the start of Common Era. But Ficino believed them to be magical incantations penned by the demigod Orpheus himself.

In the famous Greek myth, Orpheus poured his anguish into his lyre after losing his bride, Eurydice, to a fatal snake bite. Hades, King of the Underworld, was so touched by the grief-stricken songs that he allowed Orpheus to return his wife to the world of the living, on one condition: he must walk in front of her and not look back. But Orpheus snuck a peek and lost Eurydice forever.

Ficino, taking cues from the Greeks, regarded illness as a form of discord between the soul and the heavens. Like Plato before him, he saw music as the ticket to inner harmony. 

For patients with low moods, Ficino recommended melodies that evoked the mellow or upbeat planets: Venus was soft and yielding. Mercury vigorous and gay. With practice, Ficino said, music could open one’s spirit to the gifts freely offered by the heavens.

“We play the lyre,” Ficino wrote, “precisely to avoid becoming unstrung.”

Bust of Marsilio Ficino by Andrea Ferrucci, in the Cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Bust of Marsilio Ficino by Andrea Ferrucci, in the Cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Ficino himself suffered bouts of depression. “We play the lyre,” he wrote, “precisely to avoid becoming unstrung.”

(Numerous studies have shown that music really does improve depressive symptoms. But astrology has nothing to do with it.)

Ficino’s unique blend of music, mysticism and medicine captivated Italy’s brightest minds

Ficino’s unique blend of music, mysticism and medicine captivated Italy’s brightest minds for decades. After centuries of dogma about inescapable sin, Ficino offered something fresh: a sensuous Catholicism in which art, music, fragrances and original thought ignited love in the human soul, amplifying love for God.

Scholars have argued that Ficino, more than anyone else, summoned the return to beauty in the Italian Renaissance.

But the tides turned.

At age 64, Ficino saw Dominican friar Savonarola’s “bonfire of the vanities” destroy thousands of exquisite costumes, books, artworks and musical instruments.

In this assault on beauty, wrote Ficino scholar Angela Voss, “the brilliant vision of Florentine Platonism itself was hurled into the depths of Hades by the forces of ignorance and fear.”

Ficino died two years later. His fascination for the mythical past fell out of fashion. And his heavenly voice—unlike Botticelli’s paintings—was forever lost.

Sources

Biographical details and scholarly achievements:

Celenza, Christopher S., "Marsilio Ficino", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/ficino/>.

Description of Ficino’s physique and inner sanctum at Careggi:

Walker, D.P. Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000.

Ficino’s influence on Renaissance art and philosophy:

Michael J. B. Allen and Valery Rees, eds., with Martin Davies. Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy. Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002. 

Snow-Smith, J. The Primavera of Sandro Botticelli: A Neoplatonic Interpretation. New York: Peter Lang Inc., 1993.

Kristeller, P. The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino. New York: Columbia University Press, 1943.

Also see writings of the late Clement Salaman, editor of a 7-volume translation of the letters of Marsilio Ficino (previously unpublished in English).

Ficino’s Renaissance music therapy and Orpheus nickname:

Voss, Angela. “Marsilio Ficino, the Second Orpheus.” In Music as Medicine: The History of Music Therapy Since Antiquity, edited by Peregrine Horden, 154-172. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000.

Ammann, Peter. “Music and Melancholy: Marsilio Ficino’s Archetypal Music Therapy.” In Florence 98, Destruction and Creation: Personal and Cultural Transformations: Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Congress for Analytical Psychology, edited by Mary Ann Mattoon, 118-129. Daimon, 1999.

Source of “Florentine Platonism hurled into the depths of Hades” quote:

Voss, Angela. “Orpheus Redivivus: The Musical Magic of Marsilio Ficino.” In Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy, edited by Michael J. B. Allen and Valery Rees, with Martin Davies, 227-241. Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002.