Last Updated on July 27, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org
We recently an e-mail from Neurosity EEG about a new product which is called NeuroAdaptive Audio. It says in the advertisement:
«It’s a way for you to train the music you are listening to on how to fine-tune itself. In real-time. Without speaking or lifting a finger. This new tech combines the power of our brain-computer interface and AI to alter music to help you manage your mental state. Now, you can use the Neurosity app to listen to NeuroAdaptive music to supercharge your focus. This can be life-changing for people who struggle with productivity. Neurotypical or not. We invite you to join us on this incredible journey, as we explore the limitless possibilities of NeuroAdaptive Audio. Our mission is simple: Mental health minus the medicine.»
https://neurosity.co/blog/neuroadaptive-audio?mc_cid=c6836110e6&mc_eid=de715558bc
Listen to music for mental health? Do we have any scientific proof for this? Richard Davidson says: even a daily practice of 20 min meditation can change your brain in an objectively measurable way. But how about music? We do not know anything about this.
Listen to music might be helpful for mental health. But also Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan with his 20 000 exercises is helpful for mental health. So we have 20 001 methods do validate scientifically. And who will do that? Is it not better to focus on only few methods, the ones which already are investigated the most, than to develop more and more EEG devices? We risk to end up with 20 000 devices, which no one ever will study scientifically, as no one will study the effect of the 20 000 Kundalini Yoga exercises as well.
A woman who lived in a Buddhist monastery where they practiced meditation told us, they are not allowed to listen to music there. We think Audacity Audio is not suitable for mediation practitioners. Listen to music is happiness of the senses. But meditation as it is described in the meditation literature (as for instance in the books of Mathieu Ricard) is to withdraw from our senses to train your mind, train your brain, to turn your mind inwardly toward our mental state, our breath, our steps, etc, but not outwardly towards for instance music.
We therefore believe NeuroAdaptive Audio is not suitable for training the mind. Neurosity devices developed by computer Scientist A. J. Keller Co-founder Alex Castillo who does everything software at Neurosity are one of the view consumer grade EEG devices with WIFI support. This would make them suitable to track fast gamma waves which occur in the brains of meditation practitioners. But unfortunately, neither the snake like architecture of Neurosity Crown nor the NeuroAdaptive Audio is suitable for training the mind. For this purpose, tracking alpha waves as well as tracking gamma waves in the left prefrontal cortex would be helpful.