Music and Sleep: A Scientific Perspective

Music and Sleep: A Scientific Perspective presents a comprehensive discussion on the topic of music and sleep. The book brings these disciplines together, providing a solid background, recent developments, and a deeper understanding of their synthesis. Of special interest are technical advances that have made sleep recordings, music manipulation, and sleep stimulation more accessible in recent years. Notably, sleep disturbances are an increasing problem in society, highlighting the importance of developing low-risk and cost-effective treatments. Healthcare professionals looking to integrate novel information on music and sleep to increase their patients' wellbeing need look no further than this book.

Music is widely used as sleep aid, but the exact neural mechanisms of the sleep-enhancing function of music are not fully clear. New research output includes exciting breakthroughs, hypotheses, and discoveries in both of these areas. However, since research fields on the neuroscientific mechanisms of music and those of sleep have not traditionally overlapped, this book fills in the gaps.

• Elucidates on the most critical concepts, definitions, theories, neural mechanisms, and implications of music and sleep for overall health
• Focuses on the methods of using music to improve sleep for children, healthy participants, the elderly, and patients with sleep disorders
• Includes reviews and analyses of recent experimental findings from research, examining the extent to which music and sounds can be processed during sleep and the developmental changes and neural correlates of sleep

Kira Vibe Jespersen is Associate Professor at Center for Music in the Brain at Aarhus University, Denmark. With a unique interdisciplinary background in psychology, neuroscience and music therapy, her research focuses on clinical applications of music with a particular interest in the effect of music on sleep and the use of music for insomnia. In her research, she evaluates both the effects of music interventions and the potential neurophysiological mechanisms underlying these effects. In addition, she is a trained musician.

Björn Rasch is Professor of Cognitive Biopsychology and Methods at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He has been actively involved in basic sleep research for over 25 years, and has published in leading scientific journals such as Science, Nature Neuroscience, PNAS and Physiological Reviews. He has edited and written several books on memory consolidation, hypnosis research and sleep.

His research focus is on sleep, cognition and health, and he has completed many studies involving the presentation of auditory stimuli during sleep. Recently, he has started conducting several studies on music processing during sleep. In addition, he is trained in music theory and is an active musician.