Music and Exercise in Concert: Uncovering Synergistic Mechanisms for Enhancing Brain Health and Cognitive...

As the cornerstone of cognition, emotion, and social well-being, brain health faces escalating threats from aging, neurodegenerative diseases, and sedentary lifestyles. Non-pharmacological interventions have attracted growing interest owing to their favorable safety profiles and potential for widespread implementation. This review aims to examine the individual and synergistic effects of music and exercise on brain health.

This narrative review integrates literature identified through searches of PubMed and Web of Science using terms related to music, exercise or physical activity, and brain health and offers a concept-driven synthesis of the underlying neurobiological mechanisms and potential combined effects.

Music modulates neurotransmitters and neural oscillations via reward and emotion networks, while exercise enhances neuroplasticity by improving energy metabolism, neurotrophic signaling, and cerebrovascular function. Their potential synergistic interaction may arise from music's capacity to temporally structure and modulate the neurochemical and metabolic states induced by exercise. Combined interventions may further enhance synaptic plasticity and network integration by mitigating neuroinflammation and oxidative stress. They may offer additional benefits for cognition, mood, and motor control beyond either intervention alone. Dance, a prototypical integration of music and movement, activates multisensory and social networks and has shown potential benefits in Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, depression, and autism.

Music and exercise may engage convergent and potentially interacting mechanisms, including neuroplasticity, metabolic regulation, and neuroinflammatory modulation, forming an integrated framework for brain health. Dance exemplifies this music-movement integration by engaging multisensory and socio-emotional networks, highlighting its translational potential for promoting brain function.