Sonya Wang, MD, a pediatric neurologist with M Health Fairview and associate professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of Minnesota Medical School, recently received a grant worth more than $800,000 over two years from the National Institutes of Health to research the effects of music-based intervention (MBI) on neurodevelopment and pain response in preterm infants. The objectives for this research are to identify differences between MBI and controls in preterm brain maturation and early neurodevelopment and to measure differences in preterm pain responses between MBI and controls.

Michael Silverman, PhD, MT-BC, the director of the Music Therapy Program and a distinguished teaching professor in the U of M School of Music, will be working alongside Dr. Wang on this research grant.

This interdisciplinary aspect is a collaboration between the Neurology and Neonatology department within the Medical School, the Music Therapy department within the School of Music, Biostatistics within the School of Public Health, Biomedical Engineering within the School of Science and Engineering and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute. It is a first-of-its-kind grant to conduct interdisciplinary music therapy research like this with a pediatric neurologist.

“I have always been passionate about neonatal neurology,” Dr. Wang said. “The opportunity to study whether an alternative treatment approach, such as music therapy, might improve neonatal brain development is incredible. We have medical procedures that improve neonatal survival. Now, we need to optimize neurological growth.”

It has never been studied before, and Dr. Wang plans to take advantage of this grant opportunity. The goal of the research is to see if music improves memory, learning and language. If successful, this research could have numerous downstream effects, including expanded music in elementary school arts curriculum for improved learning.

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