Malice as Neuroscience
There is no need. Really, there is no need.
Shanyi tossed me an article from Real Life Magazine, casually, saying the contents sounded a lot like quantum speed-reading, and that I should take a look when I had time. I said fine; I like debunking. I spent a long time finishing this work of literary science fiction. The article described an auditory illusion called ‘binaural beats’. Its prose exuded a peculiar magnetism, luring the reader into daydreams about healing life’s afflictions through music.
Having read it, I decided to search for this auditory illusion on Google. I told Shanyi, guess what I found. Shanyi asked, what did you find?
As with the first time I heard the theory that ‘A = 432 Hz cures cancer’ three years ago, learning that binaural beats could aid meditation, sharpen focus, enhance memory and promote learning was initially exhilarating. But as the propaganda of utopian states demonstrates, exhilarating things can also cause devastating economic and educational damage. Google ‘binaural beats’ and here is what you see.
As with Baidu, the top Google result can be an advert. A company called EquiSync claims that binaural-beat-assisted meditation offers anti-ageing, longevity, life extension, weight loss, boosted immunity, and ‘enhancement’ of nine brain regions. Purely out of curiosity, I clicked through to the mechanistic overview for the nine regions. EquiSync informed me, in bold, that ‘recently’ we had discovered something called ‘neuroplasticity’, which had overturned decades of academic consensus, revealing that the brain can change. This section cited a late-1990s paper in the *Journal of Neuroscience on major depressive disorder (MDD), detailing the positive correlation between duration of MDD and reduction in hippocampal volume: the longer the depression, the smaller the hippocampus. EquiSync’s commercial strategists stated that binaural-beat-assisted meditation could enlarge the hippocampus, thereby curing MDD and restoring hope.
EquiSync binaural beats are available in instalments: $29 for three months, or $79 outright.
*As everyone knows, stating the same thing twice in different words makes it true.
The videos further down the page are also cause for alarm. Their visual effects and stock imagery recalled the panic I felt three years ago upon encountering the ‘432 Hz cures cancer’ theory.
Anyone paying attention can see by now that this is another round of audio-therapy marketing designed to extract money from the credulous.
This type of intervention, using sound as a stimulus to alter brain activity, falls under the umbrella of ‘brainwave entrainment’ technology. Its adherents include not only thousands of meditators, musicians and literary writers outside the field, but also holders of ‘Master’s degrees in Psychology from Beijing Normal University’ within it. The author of the Real Life Magazine article is a poet, Suzannah Showler. According to her account, the principle of binaural beats is simple: play a pure tone in each ear; if the two tones differ slightly in frequency, the listener perceives a third tone whose frequency equals the difference. For example, if the right ear receives 440 Hz and the left 415 Hz, the listener perceives a 25 Hz tone. According to a 1968 paper in the Journal of Neurophysiology, this perception of a difference tone most likely originates in the superior olive, an early stage in the auditory processing pathway [1]. Showler writes that the brain contains several frequency bands of neural oscillation, including the longest, delta (0.5–4 Hz), the mid-range alpha (8–12 Hz), and the shortest, gamma (35 Hz and above). Binaural beats, she states, can entrain brain activity to the frequency of the beat, thereby enhancing oscillations in that band and, consequently, the cognitive functions those oscillations are thought to support.
(In the literature, ‘entrain’ denotes the synchronisation of neural oscillations with the frequency of an external stimulus: the external stimulus ‘captures’ the brain’s oscillations, aligning the two.)
Exquisite.
To investigate whether binaural beats actually entrain and synchronise neural oscillations, one requires EEG (electroencephalography). This serviceable technique measures brain electrical activity during stimulation. Put on an EEG cap, sit in an enclosed experimental room, listen to pure tones of different frequencies in each ear, and perform a set of cognitive tasks. The participant’s neural activity is extracted via nineteen electrodes and fed to the experimenter’s data-processing software.
The setup can test whether binaural beats truly synchronise brainwaves and enhance cognition. In studies such as [2], researchers found that binaural beats in the beta band (13–35 Hz) improved performance on a vigilance task. By contrast, in studies such as [3], binaural beats in the theta band (4–8 Hz) had no effect on vigilance performance. In 2000, a paper in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis [4] reported that theta-band binaural beats induced theta oscillations in six participants; however, multiple papers including [5] and [6] failed to replicate the theta-oscillation induction reported in [4]. In particular, a study in the International Journal of Psychophysiology [5], by researchers from the National Institutes of Health and Tianjin University, found that binaural beats could induce neither theta-band oscillations nor oscillations in the alpha-to-beta range.
Taken together, two recent papers ([7], [8]) conclude that evidence for binaural beats effectively enhancing cognitive function is scant, and advise against using binaural beats as a substitute for any treatment with established efficacy.
But as everyone knows, the attitude of commercial strategists towards scientific findings is to say whatever suits the audience. On my path searching for evidence that binaural beats enhance cognition, I encountered many articles urging me to turn back. One, entitled ‘Brainwave Entrainment and Binaural Beats’ [9], solidified my resolve to write this piece. The author goes by ‘Pomodoro’, and the article appeared shortly before [7]. It details the effects of binaural beats. The author claims that binaural beats (the two externally delivered pure tones, plus a low-frequency tone generated in the superior olive) constitute noise (they do not), and that the low-frequency tone of binaural beats is produced in the cerebral cortex (it is not). At the end of the article, the author includes a promotional summary linking to an app.
I should not have clicked through. Before clicking, I already knew that it would cost money. I wondered how much time and expertise it took to build such an app. My conclusion was: virtually none. Then I clicked. The app costs £1.99.
In the early stages of my search, I was relieved that Baidu returned no results for ‘雙聲道拍頻’. Only after this app entered my field of vision did I realise that the simplified Chinese world had translated ‘binaural beats’ as ‘双耳节拍’, where ‘beats’ has been erroneously rendered as ‘rhythm’. Once one searches for ‘双耳节拍’ on Taobao or Baidu, some remarkable results appear.
There is no need. Really, there is no need. Before ‘双耳节拍’ has had a chance to gain traction, it is time to pull back from the brink. There has been enough fraud committed in the name of neuroscience; every fraud we can prevent is a gain.
In closing: good health to all. See a doctor when one ought to see a doctor; take medication when one ought to take it. I hope we will not see the Chinese internet produce a three-hour binaural-beat video with over 20,000 likes, as YouTube already has. Perhaps binaural beats do work; but given the present evidence, making money from them is not stupidity. It is malice.
Making money from them is not stupidity.
It is malice.
References
- Wernick, J. S., and Starr, A. (1968). Binaural interaction in the superior olivary complex of the cat: an analysis of field potentials evoked by binaural-beat stimuli. J. Neurophysiol. 31, 428–441.
- Lane, J. D., Kasian, S. J., Owens, J. E., and Marsh, G. R. (1998). Binaural auditory beats affect vigilance performance and mood. Physiol. Behav. 63, 249–252.
- Goodin, P., Ciorciari, J., Baker, K., Carrey, A. M., Harper, M., and Kaufman, J. (2012). A high-density EEG investigation into steady state binaural beat stimulation. PLoS One 7:e34789.
- Brady, B., and Stevens, L. (2000). Binaural-beat induced theta EEG activity and hypnotic susceptibility. Am. J. Clin. Hypn. 43, 53–69.
- Gao, X., Cao, H., Ming, D., Qi, H., Wang, X., Wang, X., et al. (2014). Analysis of EEG activity in response to binaural beats with different frequencies. Int. J. Psychophysiol. 94, 399–406.
- Stevens, L., Haga, Z., Queen, B., Brady, B., Adams, D., Gilbert, J., et al. (2003). Binaural beat induced theta EEG activity and hypnotic susceptibility: contradictory results and technical considerations. Am. J. Clin. Hypn. 45, 295–309.
- López-Caballero, F., and Escera, C. (2017). Binaural Beat: A Failure to Enhance EEG Power and Emotional Arousal. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 11:557.
- Perez, H. D. O., Dumas, G., and Lehmann, A. (2020). Binaural Beats through the Auditory Pathway: From Brainstem to Connectivity Patterns. eNeuro 0232-19.2020, 1–18.
- http://pomodorotechnique.cn/?p=114
Originally published in Chinese as 「用雙聲道拍頻「綁架大腦」？」 on 阿莫東森的無聊生活.
