Dresden (dpa / sn) - An international research team including the Dresden scientist Miriam Akkermann wants to investigate the influence of music on sleep. Lullabies and lullabies are known in all cultures and times as an effective sleep aid, not just for children, the Technical University of Dresden announced on Monday on the project called "Lullabyte". Music has powerful effects on the human brain. However, the specific influence it has on the transition from wakefulness to sleep has hardly been investigated to date.
The project aims to close this gap. According to the TU, researchers from the fields of musicology, sleep research, neuroscience and computer science from ten European universities are involved, including Aarhus University in Denmark, the Paris Brain Institute in France and the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. Akkermann is junior professor for empirical musicology in Dresden and coordinates the network.
In Dresden, the question will be pursued as to whether there are musical characteristics that traditional lullabies and lullabies and modern "sleep or relaxing music" have in common, and whether statements about the effect of musical structures on sleep can be derived from this. Of particular interest here is how the process of falling asleep and the sleep structure are changed or influenced by different types of music, explained Akkermann.
