This project is centred on creating tailored, goal-oriented, person-specific music based cardiovascular interventions through the building of autonomous, steerable, dextrous manipulation of robot piano expressions.
Music has profound effects on human physiology, with great potential for use as adjunctive medicine. Music affects the body through the autonomic nervous system, with direct impact on the heart. However, music’s effect on the heart is understudied and underutilised in cardiovascular medicine.
Humans are wired to react to prosodic features in acoustic stimuli, and trained musicians hone their dexterity to manipulate musical prosody to elicit desired reactions. However, clinical studies involving music in medicine rarely consider the expressive components of music.
The goal in this project will be to building tools and interfaces to learn and shape nuanced prosodic expressions through a reproducing (robotic) piano. The steering of musical expression will be based on individuals’ physiological feedback and designed to achieve target cardiovascular states.
A clinical application will be with the TOTEM Study using Total Body Positron Emission Tomography.
