Lauren Stewart has many years of experience with music-therapeutic treatment. Now she joins Center for Music in the Brain at Aarhus University as an honorary professor.

2016.07.05 | Ida Kirstine Thomsen

Honorary professor Lauren Stewart.

Is it possible that singing in a choir during pregnancy can prevent postnatal depression? And can music-therapy help stroke survivors to move? These are everyday questions for British professor Lauren Stewart, who works on the cognitive neuroscience of music.

International part of the leadership team

Lauren Stewart is a professor of psychology at Goldsmiths University in London and also a part of the leadership team at Center for Music in the Brain with her new honorary professorship at Aarhus University. This center is a research collaboration between Aarhus University and The Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, and is the first of its kind in Europe.

“I am delighted to be part of the leadership team for the relatively new Center for Music in the Brain. The award of this professorship consolidates and formalizes my already close relationship with Aarhus University and the fantastic environment of scholarship and innovation that this provides,” says Lauren Stewart.

Lauren Stewart has published more than 70 scientific articles on subjects, which all in different ways focus on the brain. She has for example looked into the brains plasticity in learning situations, and studied, what happens in the brain of a person with amusia. But she has especially spent a great deal of research time on the area concerning treatment and therapy based on music.

Encourages physical therapy in the patients’ own homes

The new AU-professor is, among other things, working on approaches that will motivate stroke survivors to undertake physical therapy in their own homes, after discharge from hospital. The exercises can be conducted to the sound of the patients’ favorite songs, which means that they are encouraged to perform many more repetitions of exercises than would be possible without such a rewarding context.

Lauren Stewart is certain that her own as well as the center’s research will benefit several disciplines. The results are relevant to professionals of music-psychology, education and music technology, as well as being important for music-therapists, public health specialists and others, who work within the area of health.

Lauren Stewart began her honorary professorship on 1 June 2016.

Further information

Honorary professor Lauren Stewart
Aarhus University – Department of Clinical Medicine, Center for Music in the Brain and
Goldsmiths University of London
l.stewart@gold.ac.uk