Centre of Excellence in Music, Mind, Body and Brain

Why does it matter how music-based research is conducted with preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit?

In this newly published perspective article, Dr. Kaisamari Kostilainen highlights the importance of using age-appropriate methods with preterm infants, taking into account their developmental stage and individual capacities to receive and process stimuli.

Read more in Frontiers in Psychology:
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1730120

Out now in Cultural Trends: What counts as robust evidence in creative health?

In this critical reflection on the UK Creative Health Review (2023), we critically examine the evidence used to support claims that arts and cultural engagement can help address health inequalities.

The paper highlights the importance of critical appraisal, rigorous evidence synthesis, and careful consideration of how evidence is used to inform policy and practice.

Read more: https://doi.org/10.1080/09548963.2026.2676056

Out now in PeerJ: Are you a musician or a sportsperson, and does it matter for your health? Our new study explores how music and sport identities relate to mental and physical health in adults.

A stronger sport identity was directly associated with better mental health and higher self-efficacy.

Both music and sport identities were linked to improved mental health through increased self-efficacy, and to better physical health through healthier behaviours.

Read more in PeerJ: https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.21286

On June 10th, six researchers from MMBB presented their work on music and childhood psychosocial development in the national psychology conference in Finland (Psykologia 2026), organized at the University of Jyväskylä. In the symposium chaired by Prof. Suvi Saarikallio, presentation topics ranged from musical interventions in infancy and early childhood to support early development of typically developing and risk groups, up to adolescence where the role of music in general and music listening in specific for emotion regulation and social-emotional development was approached from different angles. We were honored to be visible in this important national forum that brings together psychologists from the academia and clinical world!

📣 PhD student & post-doctoral positions for 2027-2029 available in Jyväskylä, Finland! 📣

The Centre of Excellence in Music, Mind, Body & Brain (CoE MMBB) aims to recruit 6-9 post-doctoral researchers and 4-7 doctoral researchers (PhD students) to work in Jyväskylä, Finland, for 3-year positions (1.1.2027 – 31.12.2029).

Recruited post-docs and PhD students will work in projects addressing music and emotion, movement and entrainment, social interaction and development, everyday health and wellbeing, as well as music therapy, special education and mood disorders. Methodological approaches focus on experimental research, computational modelling, psychometrics, and statistical analysis.

The call will be open from mid-August to mid-September 2026. More details and instructions for applying will be updated at the websites of the Centre: https://www.jyu.fi/en/research/centres-of-excellence/mmbb, and the website for open vacancies at University of Jyväskylä: https://www.jyu.fi/en/about-us/work-with-us/current-vacancies-at-the-university-of-jyvaskyla

Next up is Dr. Alessandro Ansani! 🎶

Terve! I’m Ale. I’m an Academy Research Fellow at the CoE and the PI of the FRAMES project (Fine-graining Audiovisual Crossmodal Correspondences, funded by the Research Council of Finland).

During my PhD in Psychology & Cognitive Science, I began my research activity by studying how film music influences our interpretations of movie scenes, mainly through questionnaires and psychophysiological studies (eye-tracking & pupillometry). I was (and still am) really fascinated by how much of the meaning of movie scenes is determined by the soundtrack! Later, I became more interested in the broad field of Music & Emotion. In 2025, I authored the Italian validation of the Brief Music in Mood Regulation scale (B-MMR). More recently, thanks to the collaboration with Dr Nicola Di Stefano (Italian National Research Council) and Prof Charles Spence (University of Oxford), I got drawn to cross-modal associations — that is, anything that happens when we couple music with stimuli from other sensory modalities: sight, smell, touch, and even taste!

At the moment, I’m working on a cross-modal multisensory mapping of musical intervals, mainly to answer very fundamental questions such as “Are minor seconds more bitter than minor sixths?”, “What is the spiciest interval?”, or “What’s the colour of major sevenths?”.

Besides, I’m what you’d probably call a stats nerd, or, more formally, a data analyst/psychometrician, so I take care of some of the statistical parts of many research projects (e.g., MusiConnect, Rhythm of Life, MusPro, etc.). In the last three years, I totally fell in love with Bayesian statistics, so I’ve now become a staunch (but still tolerant) Bayesian! Three random fun facts to conclude:
1. I play many instruments and love rearranging songs and composing soundtracks.
2. I’m Italian, so I love cooking pasta, but I'm not judgmental about it.
3. The Myers–Briggs personality test says I’m an ENTP-A (Assertive Debater: Extraverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving), but the psychometric validity of such tests is highly questionable, which — ironically — just confirms that I’m a debater. So we’re stuck in a loop now.

Cheers!

We are delighted to share some excellent news!

Our Research Director, Mari Tervaniemi, has been awarded the University of Helsinki’s Excellence in Doctoral Supervision Award in recognition of her exceptional dedication to doctoral researchers, interdisciplinary research and supportive supervision.

We warmly congratulate Mari on this well-deserved recognition! 💙

Read the article here: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/university-community/university-helsinki-celebrates-outstanding-doctoral-theses-and-supervisors

Out now in Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback: Can a 6-week self-compassion program change brain activity and reduce stress in university students?

Portable EEG showed reduced alpha/beta power during meditation tasks - interpreted as lower cortical arousal and greater neural efficiency.

A self‑compassion break produced the lowest brain activity across all bands, suggesting distinct mechanisms from mindfulness meditation.

Read more in Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10484-026-09783-9

🎵Do musicians slow down as they age? Turns out: yes.
New research on more than 10k songs shows that as artists get older, their songs literally get slower.
Not laziness (probably) — just biology, creativity, and a groove that ages gracefully.
Less BPM, more soul. 🎶

Read more here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10298649261419738

🎶 Next in our staff presentations is Ying Yang 🎶

I’m Ying. I have worked as an educator across different subjects and in different countries, studied in Changing Education program, and now work as a project planner in the VOIKO project (Voimavaraistava ja Inklusiivinen Kielen Oppiminen/Empowering and Inclusive Language Learning) at the University of Helsinki.

In this project, my work focuses on Musamoksu (Musiikki Monikielisyys Suomen oppimisen tukena), where we develop music activities and materials to support children’s language learning and multilingualism in early childhood education. The main messages we hope to convey through this project are: 1) Let’s embrace linguistic and cultural diversity, 2) Music belongs to everyone — it brings joy and connects us, supports learning, participation and inclusivity, and it is a powerful tool that every educator can use, regardless of the musical background. What I appreciate most about my work is that we are bringing research knowledge into practice and making a real impact on children and educators.

Outside of work, I enjoy reading, going to gym, playing ukulele, and spending time in nature — swimming, kayaking, and mushroom picking.

A fun fact about me: I didn’t have any musical hobbies before joining MMBB two years ago when I started working in the Fun Chinese project. I chose to join a “Singing to Learn Finnish” course and picked up my ukulele just for work - then I ended up searching for more music courses and getting pulled into the magic world of music. With some encouragement from Mari Tervaniemi, that path led me to VOIKO... Sometimes it is hard to know where life will take us, so I choose to stay curious and keep learning.