Berklee College partners with PureTech to study the effect of music on health
Summary
Panos Panay, chief of the school’s year-old Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship, sought out PureTech’s Sync Project after he heard its founders introduce their idea at SXSW this past March. Sync’s goal is to bring together neuroscientists who study music and the mind, and companies that track biometric data like heart-rate and body temperature. Together, the team would have unique, data-rich insights into how Beyonce’s latest track influences your heart rate, for example, or how Taylor Swift’s new album could shift your blood pressure. The firm set up the Sync Project in March after making a case that wearable trackers were becoming more popular just as researchers were breaking new ground on the therapeutic effects of music in isolated studies. The Sync team has assembled its own band of experts to support their work: MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito, McGill University professor and neuroscientist Robert Zatorre, and Tristan Jehan, who founded Echo Nest, the music analysis service that Spotify bought in 2014, are now part of the advisory board.