{"id":14245,"date":"2026-05-05T20:37:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T20:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/05\/synaptic-groove-a-neurologist-led-band-educates-audiences-on-the-benefits-of-music-brain-life\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T20:37:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T20:37:05","slug":"synaptic-groove-a-neurologist-led-band-educates-audiences-on-the-benefits-of-music-brain-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/05\/synaptic-groove-a-neurologist-led-band-educates-audiences-on-the-benefits-of-music-brain-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Synaptic Groove: a Neurologist-Led Band Educates Audiences on the Benefits of Music – Brain & Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Alan Ettinger, MD, MBA, FAAN, FAES, has spent decades studying how neurological disease impacts the brain. Now he’s using music to show what healing looks like—from the stage.
Some people who have family members with advanced cognitive challenges, such as Alzheimer’s disease<\/a>, have witnessed an extraordinary phenomenon: A person who cannot recall a family member’s name, where they live, or what year it is, can somehow sing every word of a song they learned decades ago. 
The moment, which can feel like something deeply meaningful has been regained, may be especially emotional for close friends and relatives. But for neurologists, it raises an important question: How does music affect the brain in ways that so many other stimuli do not?
While researchers continue to discover the relationship between music and brain function, a group of musicians called Synaptic Groove<\/a> has made it their mission to share that science with people everywhere through live concerts.
Music activates many parts of the brain at once. Most sensory experiences, such as taste or touch, engage one or two brain regions at a time. The effects of music on the brain are quite different: “Music engages the brain’s reward systems—as well as networks involved in emotion, memory, and motor control,” says Dr. Ettinger, a former professor of neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a chair on the professional advisory board of the EPIC Epilepsy Foundation, and the saxophonist who founded Synaptic Groove. “These are the very systems often disrupted in neurological disease.”
When listening to music, the brain releases dopamine—the chemical that helps us feel pleasure, motivation, and interest—just as it does in response to a great meal or an unexpected gift. The rhythm of music helps coordinate the brain’s internal timing signals, called neural oscillations or brainwaves. Think of it as your brain aligning with a beat, the way your foot does. Researchers believe this alignment may help explain why rhythmic music can support movement in people with movement disorders.
Larry S. Sherman, PhD, a professor of neuroscience at Oregon Health & Science University and author of Every Brain Needs Music<\/em><\/a>, explains the evolutionary role music has played. “Musical engagement can enhance bonding and acceptance of members of a group through neurochemical signals including endorphins and dopamine.”  In other words, music may have evolved as a tool for sustaining the social bonds humans depend on to survive.
Music’s structural effects on the brain are equally striking. Learning to play an instrument can help build myelin—the protective coating around nerve fibers that keeps electrical signals moving quickly—and the growth of new synaptic connections between brain cells. Dr. Sherman notes, “Musical practice may even promote neurogenesis—the process by which new neurons are formed.” This is why music therapy is a structured clinical treatment, different from simply listening to music in the background.
Dr. Ettinger spent decades convinced that medications alone couldn’t address the full burden of neurological illness—the depression, anxiety, and lost quality of life that often accompany seizures<\/a>, memory loss, and tremors<\/a>. Seven years ago, he began presenting educational talks on music and the brain at major medical centers in New York. “For many neurologists, this topic was entirely new,” he says. “Combining neuroimaging data with live musical demonstrations brought an unexpected vibrancy to traditionally formal academic presentations.”
But Dr. Ettinger believed that this information shouldn’t be limited to medical professionals; patients and families deserved to know this, too. That conviction became Synaptic Groove.
Joining him was accomplished keyboardist Paul Block, who assembled the ensemble: vocalist Kelsey Demsky, percussionist Rick Corwin, and bassist Bob Scollo. Together they built what Dr. Ettinger describes as “a concert-lecture experience designed to educate, inspire, and bring communities together.” The name reflects a lesson from neuroscience: “Just as synapses—the junctions where brain cells communicate—connect neurons, music connects people.”
Since their inaugural performance at the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame in 2024, Synaptic Groove has tailored programs to specific communities: the Alzheimer’s Disease Resource Center, the Epilepsy Foundation, the Parkinson’s Foundation, the National MS Society, and Music for Autism. “One patient described how a concert transported her back to the joyful days before paralysis from a brain hemorrhage altered her life,” Dr. Ettinger says. “Seeing families sing and dance together has been deeply meaningful for our entire band.”
Does music help with dementia<\/a>? According to Borna Bonakdarpour, MD, FAAN, FANA, an associate professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, the answer is a meaningful yes. He explains that in Alzheimer’s disease, the memories of music are some of the last to go. Alzheimer’s disease damages some parts of the brain earlier than others and the regions tied to musical memory tend to remain better preserved. “Music taps into all cognitive functions and can be used as a tool to rehabilitate lost functions.” This includes managing anxiety, which is common in Alzheimer’s disease, and supporting patients struggling with speech or processing. 
For Parkinson’s disease<\/a>, rhythmic auditory stimulation—a technique that uses music or a metronome beat to cue and guide movement—has shown benefits for people whose walking has become halting or frozen.
In people with epilepsy<\/a>, research<\/a> led by Dr. Ettinger at the Dartmouth Music and Epilepsy Laboratory found that listening to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major<\/em> significantly reduced abnormal electrical activity in the brain associated with seizures in patients with implanted monitoring electrodes. Interestingly, other musical pieces tested did not produce the same effect as the Mozart sonata. He is now conducting a randomized controlled trial on whether music therapy can reduce anxiety in people with epilepsy.
Music is also being studied as a tool for stroke<\/a> recovery, multiple sclerosis<\/a>, chronic pain, and mental health conditions because of its unusual ability to engage nearly every major brain system at once.
Read more: <\/strong>The Growing Role of Music Therapy in Health Care<\/a>
Musical ability isn’t required to benefit from music therapy. “Being ‘musical’ is not the requirement—being human is,” says Joy Allen, PhD, MT-BC, the director of the Music and Health Institute at Berklee College of Music in Boston. “Every human being is rhythmic and responsive. The goal isn’t performance. The goal is engagement.” A starting point might be humming along with a song, tapping a beat, or singing with someone else.
Active music-making such as singing, drumming, or playing an instrument, engages more brain systems simultaneously than passive listening, and research suggests it’s valuable at any age. Studies show that learning an instrument later in life can improve attention, coordination, and memory—demonstrating the brain’s ability to form new connections throughout life. Dr. Sherman recommends starting with a musical activity you enjoy so that you’ll keep doing it: “For some that may be a ukulele, for others a simple drum.”
Live music also appears neurologically distinct from recorded music. “Our brains engage differently with live music because we react to both the music and to the musicians,” Dr. Sherman explains—and that social, embodied dimension cannot be replicated by a playlist.
So how does music therapy work when professional support is needed? Board-certified music therapists (MT-BCs) complete specialized clinical training and national certification, then design sessions targeting specific health goals—rhythm-based movement for Parkinson’s, vocal exercises for post-stroke speech, or music-assisted relaxation for chronic pain. But the largest barrier to access is insurance. “Our medical practice is much too focused on pharmacological interventions,” Dr. Bonakdarpour says. Music therapy fees are often not reimbursed by insurance, leaving thousands of trained therapists underused.
At the end of a Synaptic Groove performance, Dr. Ettinger sometimes looks out at an audience that includes his own patients. On stage, something shifts. “By stepping beyond the traditional physician role and sharing music with my patients, barriers dissolve,” he says. “We become a community united by curiosity, resilience, and joy.”<\/p>\n

\t\t© 2026 \t<\/p>\n

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