When neuroscientist and musician AZA Allsop discovered research by his Yale colleague Joy Hirsch about how group drumming and musical interaction can affect social behavior, he knew there was a collaboration in their future.

Five years later, their joint work has shown that music is a powerful social enhancer that directly impacts brain functioning.

“When I reached out to see if we could work together on a project focused on music, Joy was as excited as I was,” said Allsop, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine who is also a jazz artist. “As we drafted our new research, I really relied on my background in music production, theory, and performance to help shape things.”

Hirsch, also a neuroscientist, brought her own musical experience to the partnership. A veteran competitive ballroom dancer, she has won many accolades including national championship titles.

“AZA and I connected immediately, because of our shared love of music, our experience with music in one form or another, and our commitment to understanding how the brain operates under music conditions,” said Hirsch, the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry and professor of comparative medicine and of neuroscience.

In a new study, published in The Journal of Neuroscience, they find that listening to harmonically consonant chord progressions during face-to-face interaction strengthened neural activity in brain areas that help people understand and respond to others.

The latest data on the scale of drink spiking in the UK will be presented to the public for the first time at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) this Saturday (21 March) as part of the Cambridge Festival, organised by the University of Cambridge.

A national survey by forensic scientists at ARU and charity Drinkaware, carried out by YouGov and involving 7,256 UK adults, found approximately 2% of adults reported being a victim of drink spiking in the previous 12 months. When extrapolated across the UK population, this equates to nearly one million people. However, fewer than one in four (23%) contacted the police.