Entrainment of Autonomic Rhythms to Musical Structure:Re-visiting and Extending Bernardi et al. (2009)

Bernardi et al. saw that autonomic variables can synchronise with the music envelope, revealing the entrainment potential of musical structures. This study aimed to replicate their findings using current music information research and time-frequency analysis (TFC) methods and to extend the analysis to inter-physiological interactions. Continuous blood pressure (BP), electrocardiograms (ECG), and respiration were recorded from 24 participants (13 women, mean age 23.5[95%CI: 22.2–24.8]). The 12 choristers and 12 non-choristers, listened to excerpts from Verdi’s La Traviata and Nabucco. Tempo and loudness were extracted from the music's beats and audios. TFC was computed for all signal pairs.<br/><br/>No significant group differences were seen in coherence, except for choristers' respiration–BP waveforms during Nabucco (P&lt;0.02). Nabucco’s musical features and systolic/diastolic BP had strongest coherence against surrogate data (P&lt;0.0005). La Traviata showed weaker effects. Coherence between RR–diastolic BP and respiration–BP waveform was also significantly elevated during Nabucco versus silence (P&lt;0.05). Visual inspection showed strong alignment between Nabucco’s loudness and BP waveform envelopes.<br/>These results confirm Bernardi et al.’s findings and show that music entrains autonomic variables, suggesting a mechanism for music’s effect on body rhythms.