Near future
Contacts
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Architecture
  • energia
  • Transportation
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • Gadgets
  • Italy Next
  • H+
May 20, 2022

Coronavirus / Russia-Ukraine

Near future

News to understand, anticipate, improve the future.

No Result
View All Result

News to understand, anticipate, improve the future.

Read in:  Chinese (Simplified)EnglishFrenchGermanItalianJapanesePortugueseRussianSpanish

The last frontier of sound? Digital drugs

The recreational use of binaural beats to experience psychedelic experiences leads science to study the capabilities of these sonic "drugs".

Gianluca Ricciodi Gianluca Riccio
in Medicine, Technology
Share2001Pin451Tweet1251SendShare350ShareShare250
binaural sounds

binaural sounds

April 2 2022
⚪ Reads in 4 minutes
A A

Human beings have an amazing ability to invent unique and fascinating ways to escape from reality. We smell, sniff, lick, chew substances (let's face it: drugs) since the dawn of time.

Researchers have taken a fresh look at a relatively new technique for changing people's minds, which makes use of digital sounds to deliver different (sometimes opposite) frequencies in each ear. Some studies claim that these "binaural beats" can interrupt or reduce pain, improve memory and counteract anxiety and depression. And that's not all.

A team of Australian and British researchers have excavated the Global Drug Survey 2021, a survey of more than 30.000 individuals from 22 countries, to determine what kind of crossover might exist between drug use and binaural beat experimentation.

Maybe you are also interested

MIT makes paper-thin speakers to create entire sound rooms

No headphones: Soundbeamer sends music directly to the brain

MIT uses a laser to transmit audio directly to a person's ear

The discovery? In 2021 5% of the interviewees experienced binaural beats. And just over one in ten people used it just for fun.

Sound digital drugs

The users of the research (published on  Drug and Alcohol Review) were aged from late teens to early 20s and had used illegal drugs such as MDMA or cannabis, and were from the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Brazil and Poland.

Aside from looking for a high, their reasons for experimenting with these sonic drugs are different.

“It's a whole new thing. We just don't know much about the use of binaural beats as digital drugs ", says the lead author Monica Barratt of RMIT University in Australia.

"This survey reveals that this is happening in more countries," he explains. "We had anecdotal knowledge, but this was the first time we asked people how, why and when they used these sounds."

digital drugs - monica barratt
Monica Barratt

A story that starts from afar

The phenomenon of binaural beats has been around for some time, at least since the mid-XNUMXth century. Today they are becoming more and more popular as an art form, however, due to the ease with which they can be produced and distributed online.

Theoretically, binaural beats affect how our sensory system interprets the different low frequencies when they are fed separately into each ear. In summary, they cause changes in the brain.

An example: when you listen to two tones of the same frequency (400 hertz in one ear and 440 hertz in the other) your brain will perceive them as a single 40 hertz noise emanating "somewhere" inside your head.

This interpretation requires more of our peripheral auditory system: it also involves brain stem activity, pushing neurons far and wide to synchronize in wave patterns associated with relaxation. What path do these sounds take in order to even be compared to drugs?

What does science think?

digital sound drugs

Aside from the theory, there are some studies which encourage the exploration of binaural beats as a method of treating acute anxiety. Others argue that the benefits of using binaural beats (meaning "drugs" that alter mood and psyche) have yet to be demonstrated.

However, as mentioned, the number of people looking for "psychedelic experiences" from binaural beats is constantly increasing. Just like they have drug-like properties, reiterates the Barratt.

Could binaural beats be a trigger to get you into a "real" drug high? The researcher excludes this, and in any case no study seems to support this thesis.

At the moment, "digital drugs" generate more hype than high. But this study is a good starting point to keep track of this trend, and the behaviors of those who self-medicate (or seek pleasure) through alternative means.

tags: drugsSound
Previous post

Various reasons to buy a two-in-one laptop

Next Post

World Autism Awareness Day: Progress Made

COLLABORATE

To submit articles, disclose the results of a research or scientific discoveries write to the editorial staff
  • Domus trimaran

    Domus, crazy zero-emission trimaran

    11682 Shares
    Share 4670 Tweet 2919
  • Create 'renewable' or rather 'perpetual' bio photovoltaic cells

    8230 Shares
    Share 3291 Tweet 2057
  • Plastic recycling, shock report: "it doesn't work, and it will never work"

    4354 Shares
    Share 1741 Tweet 1088
  • Unreal Engine 5, crazy: it doesn't stand out from reality

    5833 Shares
    Share 2333 Tweet 1458
  • Hermeus tries it: hypersonic planes of 6000 kilometers per hour

    2346 Shares
    Share 938 Tweet 586

archive

Have a look here:

Robotica

Toyota hung a robot butler from the ceiling

Toyota and its research laboratory, RTI, come up with a machine that changes all the paradigms of the robotic butler ...

Read More

From Portugal to Singapore: the longest route in the world is even longer

Nail printers: does nail art retire?

Co-working floating on the Vistula is a portrait of the post-Covid world

Villa Mafalda and microsurgery: a new conquest of medicine

Next Post
World Autism Awareness Day

World Autism Awareness Day: Progress Made

The daily tomorrow

Futuroprossimo.it provides news on the future of technology, science and innovation: if there is something that is about to arrive, here it has already arrived. FuturoProssimo is part of the network ForwardTo, studies and skills for future scenarios.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Environment
Architecture
Artificial intelligence
Gadgets
concepts
Design

Staff
Archives
Advertising
Privacy Policy

Medicine
Spazio
Robotica
Work
Transportation
energia

To contact the FuturoProssimo editorial team, write to redazione@futuroprossimo.it

Chinese Version
Édition Française
Deutsche Ausgabe
Japanese version
English Edition
Edição Portuguesa
Русское издание
Spanish edition

The daily tomorrow

Futuroprossimo.it provides news on the future of technology, science and innovation: if there is something that is about to arrive, here it has already arrived. FuturoProssimo is part of the network ForwardTo, studies and skills for future scenarios.

Chinese Version
Édition Française
Deutsche Ausgabe
Japanese version
English Edition
Edição Portuguesa
Русское издание
Spanish edition

Staff
Archives
Advertising
Privacy Policy

Subscribe to our newsletter

To contact the FuturoProssimo editorial team, write to redazione@futuroprossimo.it

Categories

This work is distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.
© 2021 Futuroprossimo

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Architecture
  • energia
  • Transportation
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • Gadgets
  • Italy Next
  • H+
This site uses cookies. By continuing to read it, you consent to their use.